In the months before the Austin ISD board of trustees’ Nov. 20 vote to close 11 total schools next fall, several parents took the public comment mic to say that, for the first time, they were considering leaving the public school district for a private or charter option.
“I have a kindergartner and I have a 1-year-old, and I’m hoping to be in the district for the next 17 years,” a Becker Elementary parent said at an early November AISD board meeting. “But this process has really made it feel like that’s not going to be possible for my family.”
AISD is desperately trying to keep families at closing schools in the district, as Superintendent Matias Segura has said, notifying them early of their school assignment for next year. Those notifications have been going out this week, Feb. 9-13. Back in December, some trustees worried that it wouldn’t be early enough.
After all, last Wednesday morning, Feb. 4, applications opened for Texas’ first-ever universal private school voucher program, the Texas Education Freedom Accounts. For Gov. Greg Abbott, a voucher program has been a longtime goal: Bipartisan efforts by lawmakers held it at bay for years, but in last year’s Lege, with heavy arm-twisting from Abbott, it finally passed.
Even for the folks who didn’t want vouchers, they’re here. This fall, parents will be able to send their kid to a private school with $10,474 a year in tuition assistance, or up to $30,000 for students with special education needs. Homeschooling families and those attending non-accredited schools can get up to $2,000 a year.
“We know that people [soon] have to put down deposits for private schools, if that’s something they’re considering. People are going to have to apply for vouchers. Charter schools have deadlines,” AISD Board President Lynn Boswell said on Dec. 18.
The voucher concern aside, student enrollment in Austin ISD and in public school districts across Texas is in chronic decline, with AISD losing over 11,700 students since the 2019-2020 school year. Fewer students means AISD gets less funding from the state, exacerbating the district’s already dire financial situation.
According to David DeMatthews, professor of educational leadership and policy at UT-Austin and founder of the Texas Education Leadership Lab, the reasons for that decline are largely outside of the AISD’s control: a national decline in birth rate, and in gentrifying cities like Austin, fewer children live in metropolitan ISDs’ attendance boundaries.
On top of that, “We’ve seen a pretty significant growth of charter schools in Austin over the past 15 years,” DeMatthews said. Since 2009, enrollment in Austin-area charter schools has increased from about 4,000 students to almost 22,000 students, and 37 new charter school campuses have opened, according to DeMatthews.
On top of birth rates and charter expansion in Texas, housing availability in the city and “immigration challenges” have impacted attendance in AISD schools, according to Segura’s Jan. 29 presentation on enrollment trends. Nonetheless, declining enrollment and dropping accountability scores across Texas public districts were cited by the GOP as reasons the private school voucher program was needed.
Will the vouchers hurt AISD enrollment? DeMatthews doesn’t predict that they’ll have a huge impact, at least in the first year. If Texas follows the trends of other states with voucher programs, the majority of voucher users are wealthy families who were already sending their kids to private school, not families jumping ship from their local public school: In Arkansas, 95% of voucher program participants were kindergartners or already enrolled in a private school in 2023. In Arizona, only 21% of the FY 2023 participants in the program were previously in public school, though that has reportedly shifted to nearly 57% in FY 2026.
Will the vouchers hurt public school funding? State funding is lost when students leave the district. But even if AISD doesn’t lose a single child to a private school voucher, “the state, at the end of the day, has a limited pool of money,” DeMatthews emphasized. “So public schools will be hurt in the long run. If the voucher program continues to expand, whether or not it takes kids out of the public schools, it’s going to decrease the pot of money that could go towards funding public education.”
Families attending charter schools could be more likely to switch to a private school accepting vouchers, DeMatthews said. “They’re already leavers, they’ve opted out of the public school system.” But then again, the vouchers could prove to be another tug for Austin families, particularly wealthier ones, away from public schools – even those who are politically progressive.
“I’m a parent of children with disabilities in AISD,” one mother told trustees during the Jan. 29 board meeting. “The administration would do good to understand that people are voting with their feet. … AISD can actually reflect and improve, so that families are choosing Austin ISD.”
When the AISD administration announced the school closure list back in October, Segura stressed one message for families: “We want your student to be in Austin ISD.”
“I believe that Austin ISD – from a values perspective, from a quality of education perspective – is the best option in the city by far,” Segura continued. “But every family has the option to make a decision, and as I always tell our families, you should do what’s best for your student.”
The Voucher Program
The Texas Education Freedom Accounts’ $10,474-30,000 private school voucher is covered by every Texan taxpayer, who will pay up to $1 billion for the program in the 2026-2027 school year. And, if the Texas Legislature allows the GOP next session, that funding cap could be loosened and set higher for future years.
Back in May, when Gov. Greg Abbott signed off on Senate Bill 2 and made the vouchers (also called Education Savings Accounts) state law, he touted that the program will ensure that Texas families have greater opportunity to choose where their children go to school, “to take their money and find the school that’s right for them.”
The “school choice” argument goes: Public schools are “one-size-fits-all” and don’t adequately serve every child’s specific needs or interests, be those special education services or a different learning model. Children are “trapped” in low-performing public schools, while education savings accounts like TEFA “empower” families to choose private education, “regardless of income.” They argue that by creating a Texas education market, public schools will be forced to up their game.
Conservative Christians have long been proponents of state-funded programs for religious private education choices over secular public education, “giving parents the freedom to choose the best educational path for their children to reach their God-given potential,” as Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Kelly Hancock, who is administering the voucher program, said in October.
But today, the majority of Texans send their kids to their neighborhood public school – 5.5 million students, the second-largest public student population in the U.S., according to the TEA’s 2025 annual report. In contrast, private schools educate about 257,500 students in Texas (4.5%), per the Learning Policy Institute’s March 2025 report.
The $1 billion funding pot is expected to accommodate 80,000-100,000 students, and most taxpayers’ school-aged children won’t benefit from the voucher program their families are footing the bill for.
How Does the Program Work?
Through March 17, parents are able to fill out the online application on TEFA’s website, Initial enthusiasm for the program has been undeniable: Over 24,000 students had already applied when the Chronicle spoke to TEFA less than six hours after applications opened on Feb. 4. By the end of the day, that number had nearly doubled to 42,000 – a record for day-one enrollment in a new voucher program in any state.
If the eligible applicants exceed the available $1 billion, there’s a prioritization system: first, students with disabilities in middle-income households (at or below 500% of the federal poverty level); secondly, all students in the lowest-income households (at or below 200% of the poverty level); and thirdly, all students in middle-income households.
Once applicants are approved to receive funding in April, at least 25% of the approved funding will be available in their account on July 1, 50% by Oct. 1, and all of it by April 1, 2027.
The funds can be used for tuition, educational therapies and services, curriculum and instructional materials, tutoring, technology (up to 10% of funds), and more, according to the website.
As of Feb. 9, about 1,800 Texas private schools will be accepting TEFA vouchers next school year, including 156 schools in the Austin area (defined as Jarrell to San Marcos north-south, and Bastrop to Marble Falls east-west).
The majority of the voucher schools are in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metropolitan areas, with over 1,000 schools between them as of Feb. 9. Austin and San Antonio lag behind them, with just over 350 schools between the two – meaning the large bulk of vouchers will be concentrated in cities and harder to access in rural areas.
Out of those Austin-area private schools, the majority (118 schools) are preschools or include pre-K. Ninety-five schools include elementary grades, 72 schools include middle school grades, and 48 include high school grades, as of Feb. 9.
Per the comptroller’s rules, all schools must be accredited by the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission or another accreditor approved by the TEA. They must have been in operation for at least two years, and that total can include time operating outside of Texas. Even completely virtual schools can accept vouchers, as long as they have a “business location” in Texas.
In terms of student performance accountability, the schools must administer one “nationally norm-referenced assessment.” While the comptroller will make an annual report regarding number of applicants and participants, demographics, and effect on local public and private schools, state oversight of the program’s academic performance remains unclear.
“If vouchers truly offer a higher quality choice to families, why won’t we see a report on student achievement for all students in the program? That is not currently required,” said Carrie Griffith of the Austin-based nonpartisan nonprofit Our Schools Our Democracy.
Back in October, Comptroller Hancock announced that the TEFA application portal would be run by the New York-based company Odyssey, who has also managed the private school voucher program rollouts in Iowa, Georgia, Louisiana, Utah, and Wyoming.
Education organizations like Our Schools Our Democracy were quick to call out the company’s track record. In managing $1.5 million of Idaho’s Empowering Parents voucher program (a much smaller pot of money than Texas’ program), Odyssey was audited by the state for reported “spending on clothes, TVs, smartwatches, and other noneducational items,” per ProPublica’s January 2025 reporting.
In the 2026-2027 school year, under SB 2, Odyssey can be paid up to $50 million in tax dollars.
“Given Odyssey’s track record of operational mismanagement and misuse of state funds in much smaller voucher programs, Texans should sound the alarm about the Comptroller’s decision to entrust Odyssey with $1 billion of our taxpayer dollars,” Maggie Stern of Our Schools Our Democracy said in an Oct. 7 statement. “When private companies receive public funds, they should be accountable and transparent.”
The Discrimination Question
Are vouchers discriminatory? It’s a question that has been raised since the mid-1950s, when the idea of vouchers was first introduced by parents who wanted to keep their kids in racially segregated private schools after the U.S. Supreme Court declared public-school segregation unconstitutional.
But today, pro-school-choice advocates would say vouchers are the opposite of discriminatory, arguing the vouchers are a socioeconomic equalizer in granting access to private education, or private services like speech and occupational therapy.
“Within the available funding, the students with the greatest need get the most priority, starting with students with disabilities who often get the most benefit with these programs that allow their families to customize their education,” Travis Pillow, a spokesperson for TEFA, told the Chronicle.
But for a program meant for low-income families, the $10,474 coupon doesn’t cover the entire tuition at around a third of the schools enrolled in the TEFA program as of Jan. 13, according to a Texas Observer analysis, so families would still need to be able to afford the rest, not including application fees, uniforms, field trips, athletics, and other additional costs typical for private schools.
“If legislators wanted low-income families in Texas private schools … it would’ve been a sliding scale based on how much you need, not a fixed rate where now all of the private schools know that everyone is getting $10,000, and they raise all of their tuitions and fees so they can make more money,” DeMatthews said.
And if a low-income AISD family wants to take advantage of the vouchers, money isn’t getting transferred into their TEFA account until July 1. That’s after security deposits are due at many private schools in Austin, DeMatthews pointed out. “If this policy was really about giving access and prioritizing low-income families, they would have notified them in December, and they would have already given them money to support paying for the early deposits to hold seats,” DeMatthews said.
“This is predictably going to deny thousands of Austin families that are low-income from possibly using the voucher, especially at the better private schools where there’s high demand,” he continued.
All parents must also prove that their child is a U.S. citizen or “lawfully admitted” into the U.S., so undocumented children (including those in taxpaying families) will not be able to access the vouchers, whereas Texas public school districts are federally compelled to educate all children regardless of citizenship status.
While school choice advocates argue that all Texans have the choice to apply for and take advantage of the TEFA program, the reality is that some Texans don’t: 61% of Texas counties have no elementary, middle, or high schools accepting vouchers, even though taxpayers in these counties will pay for private school vouchers across the state, according to a Feb. 2 report by Our Schools Our Democracy.
Moreover, a significant number of schools accepting TEFA vouchers in the Austin area are Christian, Catholic, Jewish, or otherwise religiously affiliated, where, according to several school websites, students are often required to attend chapel, mass, or prayer, and are taught religious texts in the classroom.
TEFA spokesperson Pillow told the Chronicle that they do not have data regarding the religious affiliation of TEFA schools, and that it’s not considered when reviewing schools for the program, nor is whether or not the school offers special education services.
When analyzing the policies of 268 religious schools participating in the TEFA program, the Texas Observer found that at least 25% expect adherence to “strict” sexuality and gender policies, and some forbid LGBTQ+ students to enroll.
This prompts the question: Is it a First Amendment violation if public tax dollars are used to fund religious education that will openly exclude groups of students? Thus far, the U.S. Supreme Court has opened that door, deciding most recently in 2022 that Maine’s voucher program could not exclude private schools on the basis of religious affiliation (Carson v. Makin).
Nonetheless, Austin public school advocates like Louis Malfaro, former president of the union Education Austin and executive director of the Travis County Democratic Party, argue that private school vouchers are a violation of the Texas Constitution’s Establishment Clause.
“It acknowledges that religious freedom means freedom of conscience, which means you can’t be compelled to worship. You can’t be compelled to pay taxes towards the support of any religious institution, including educational institutions,” Malfaro alleged.
“Everybody thinks parents should have a choice in where their kids go to school,” he added. “But if you ask the public, even today, ‘Do you think the state of Texas should be paying for the private religious education of children in Texas?’ They will say ‘No,’ probably two to one.”
AISD & IEPs
The TEFA voucher program is intended to doubly benefit disabled children and children with special needs, granting them an extra $10,000-20,000 on top of the base voucher. Pillow says those extra funds can be used “on your terms,” on speech or occupational therapy, tutoring, or other privately provided services partnered with TEFA, claiming more “flexibility” over an ISD’s free special education and therapy services.
In order to apply to TEFA and receive the max voucher of $30,000 a year, the student with a disability or special education needs must have an individualized education plan, or IEP, already on file with the TEA before the application period ends March 17.
Public school districts like Austin ISD are required by law to provide a free special education evaluation for all families who request them and live within the district boundary, even if they’re not planning to attend an AISD school, and write the child an IEP with their specific accommodations and learning plan.
And now, AISD is experiencing a rush of parents requesting evaluations before the TEFA application window closes, needing an IEP on file with the state agency to be eligible for the larger voucher. “It’s incentivizing people to ask us to do the work of the evaluations,” AISD Trustee Fernando de Urioste pointed out during the Jan. 15 board meeting.
“A lot of the requests that we have received are accompanied by a sense of urgency or a request to be expedited ahead of other students, in order to meet the application timelines for TEFA,” a district official confirmed to trustees.
While the evaluations are free for families, they aren’t free for the public school district, which is responsible for financially supporting the education of every child regardless of their learning differences or special needs. When TEFA incentivizes parents to have their child evaluated for services, that new system is reportedly creating further strain on AISD’s resources.
“To be explicit about what it means: How it is impacting our district, how it is impacting our students … I think having very precise numbers on what this is costing our district, so that we can advocate for some fairness, would be really valuable,” Board President Boswell stressed to district officials Jan. 15.
However, for a voucher program meant to support special education students, the private schools accepting TEFA vouchers have no legal obligation to provide internal special education services. Unlike public schools, they don’t need to enroll children with special needs at all.
“That’s also not part of our review,” Pillow said, referring to whether or not a private school applying to TEFA offers special education services or not. He added that in the coming weeks, applications for “education services” will open for families, where they can choose private therapists and psychologists to hire with TEFA funds.
“Parents are in the driver’s seat,” Pillow concluded.
participate in the voucher program Credit: Sammie Seamon
Choices
William James and his spouse have four young kids, and the oldest is a kindergartner at Ridgetop Elementary, one of the AISD schools slated for closure next year. They considered going to Reilly ES, but the current principal and some staff will be moving to another campus next year. “We don’t want to put our child through a school restart,” James said.
They’ve also become concerned about the possibility of a takeover of AISD by the TEA, having heard about what’s happening under a TEA-managed Houston ISD. “If that happens in Austin, that would really change the district significantly,” he continued. “We want to get out of this situation.”
With the closure of Ridgetop, “there’s a very high chance we’re moving out of the district,” James said, though they’re enrolling just in case. The family is also considering the surrounding ISDs, charter schools, and private schools in the area. They’d consider the vouchers, but don’t believe that they would get one of the 100,000 spots for next school year.
“If you talk to people on the school choice side, it’s like, why would you not create competition and force the public schools to compete in the market?” James said, about private school vouchers. “But trying to get a public entity that’s completely underfunded to compete in a market is ridiculous. How are they going to compete if you’re not funding them adequately?”
To apply for the vouchers is a decision that many Austin families are making right now, even if politically they support public education, as the James family does, or even if they’re politically anti-voucher: It’s simply a new option on the table.
“I think they’re valid to consider,” James reflected. “There are a lot of people in the advocacy groups who are very pro-public education … But people are going to choose the best education for their kids. They’re not going to do it along political lines.”
This article appears in February 13 • 2026.