BONUS: The Texas Two-Step: What $8.5 Billion Bought
The Texas Two-Step was designed to answer a question: how do you pass a school voucher bill in a state where most children attend public schools and teachers vote?
You pass another bill the same day. You put a headline number on it large enough to crowd out the fine print. And you call it historic.
BONUS: Who Is Getting Paid to Run Texas School Vouchers?
Texas handed its $1 billion school voucher contract to a 40-person company called Odyssey. Staffed with Governor Abbott's former chief of staff, communications director, and deputy chief of staff. In Idaho, that same company got fired after approving drones, smartwatches, and gun holsters as educational expenses. Texas awarded the contract anyway.
The Schools Your Tax Dollars Are Funding
Texas voucher schools are not state actors and not bound by federal civil rights law. The Legislature wrote that exemption directly into the bill. Here is what TEFA-funded private schools are required to do, what they are not, and what the schools themselves have already put in writing.
Who Is Actually Using Texas School Vouchers
Three out of every four families who applied for a Texas voucher were already paying for private school. The first round of TEFA awards is in, and the data tells a different story than the one Texans were sold.
How Texas Education Freedom Accounts Actually Work
Texas built a voucher program that does not guarantee admission, does not cover most tuitions, and asks the families it claims to prioritize to give up the most. Here is what is actually in the fine print.
How Texas School Vouchers Finally Passed After Decades of Failure
Texas school vouchers failed in the legislature for decades. Governor Abbott changed that by changing the legislature itself. Here is the full story of how TEFA came to exist, and what it took to get there.