On May 3, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2 into law, launching the most heavily funded school voucher program in U.S. state history. This bill would establish an Educational Savings Account Program and allocate educational vouchers for families to utilize for personalized schooling. With one billion dollars of public tax revenue approved for these efforts, SB 2 has the potential to support 80,000-100,000 students with private and religious school costs as opposed to public schooling.
SB2 is backed by the idea that it provides more accessible education to low-income and special needs families who are unable to afford alternatives to public schooling. Keeping this initiative in mind, the law gives priority to households making below a threshold income amount to cater to families who need Educational Savings Accounts (ESAs) most. Many are drawn to the bill’s promise of empowering families to choose the best-fit education for their children.
Yet the program’s projected impact contradicts its stated intent to expand equitable access. Integrating school vouchers may prove to be ineffective in catering to accessibility and equity needs because of who historically enrolls in programs like these. To elaborate, it is vital to observe trends in similar state programs. Arkansas implemented an education law allocation, “Educational Freedom Accounts” or vouchers for families to support private schooling costs. Most of these funds went not to low-income families but to those already sending their children to private schools. Specifically, 95% of students who took advantage of these vouchers were already in private school or were first-time kindergarteners. And in Texas, according to the state’s fiscal analysis, it is projected that 97% of those who apply for these vouchers will be pre-existing private school students. This data taints the intention of the bill to support struggling families and instead allocates tax dollars to families who are already funding privatized education.
Besides missing the intended use of public funding, the integration of school vouchers in Texas seemingly falls short of solving the issue of underfunded public schools in the state. The state’s schooling data shows 73% of school districts are underfunded, with 17% of those districts considered severely underfunded, with funding gaps exceeding 40% of demonstrated needs. These figures, alongside the fact that public school funding is based on enrollment rates, push vouchers to seem counterintuitive. In the case that enrollment declines, the funding going to schools will decrease as well, only exacerbating this underfunding.
It's also important to note that private schools are often not the better educational option. Specifically, a report from Louisiana’s Scholarship Program, similar to the voucher program, demonstrated that students who utilized funds to attend private schools often performed worse in math after being enrolled in alternative schooling. In addition to this, correlations were found between school funding and Texas Education Agency (TEA) student achievement ratings. Specifically, larger funding gaps more often than not correlate to lower TEA student achievement ratings, signaling that underfunded schools are less adequate for student success.
The duality between underfunding and low student achievement, in conjunction with lessened student success shown in private schools, makes vouchers seem like they would completely miss their intended impact of increasing equitable education and instead would cause resources to be lacking in institutions where students need them most.