180,000+ Students Left Behind in Texas’ School Choice

Originally published on Substack. 

Texas families just made the case for school choice better than any politician, think tank, or activist ever could.

The first year of Texas Education Freedom Accounts (think ESAs) drew 274,310 applications by the March 31 deadline. That is not a niche movement or a messaging win, that is a market signal.

Families across Texas are telling lawmakers, loudly and clearly, that they want more control over their children’s education. That should be celebrated. Texas finally cracked the government-school monopoly.

But let’s not pretend the work is finished.

Demand Is Real

This application surge proves what some of us have been saying for years: school choice is real, popular, and badly needed. It also proves something else. TEFA was never truly universal school choice.

From the beginning, I have argued that the right standard is all students, all money, all options. Texas has 6.3 million school-age kids. A truly universal model would let funding follow every child to the best-fit education options, whether that is a district school, charter school, private school, microschool, tutoring, therapies, or homeschooling support. That is the real goal.

TEFA does not get us there yet.

The state appropriated $1 billion for the first year. Based on the official award structure, that likely funds only about 90,000 students, and possibly fewer depending on how many students receive larger disability awards.

Private-school students can receive $10,474, homeschool students receive $2,000, and students with disabilities can receive up to $30,000.

So yes, 274,310 applications is huge. But if the state can fund only around 90,000 spots, then the program reaches only about 1.4 percent of Texas’s 6.3 million school-age kids.

That is not universal choice. That is rationed choice.

The Tiers Tell the Story

The new details make the point even more clearly.

Applications are prioritized through a need- and income-based lottery. The first tier is low- and middle-income students with disabilities. The second tier is low-income families. The third tier is middle-income families. The fourth tier is families above 500 percent of the federal poverty line, and they are limited to just 20 percent of total program funding.

According to the Comptroller’s reported breakdown, nearly three-fourths of applicants are from low- or middle-income families. Nearly 30,000 applicants qualify for the first priority tier, and another 79,000 qualify for the second.

In other words, the full $1 billion will likely be exhausted just serving the first two tiers.

That means the state created a program with overwhelming demand and then funded it so narrowly that most applicants will not receive an account in year one.

Again, that does not weaken the case for school choice. It strengthens it.

Hold Your Ground

For months, too many people acted as if Texas had already reached the gold standard just because it finally passed something. It had not. I argued that partial reforms still leave millions of students behind and that universality, not symbolism, is the real test.

That is exactly what we are seeing now.

Families did not just “like” TEFA. They overwhelmed it. They did not treat it like a boutique side program. They treated it like what it should become: a real alternative to a government-school monopoly that has been overfunded and underperforming for too long.

Texas lawmakers should stop reading this as proof they nailed it. They should read it as proof they underbuilt it.

The Better Model

And here is the bigger point.

A truly universal TEFA could still be cheaper than what Texas already spends propping up the monopoly system.

At a simple top-line comparison, a universal TEFA funded at $12,000 per student for all 6.3 million school-age children would cost $75.6 billion per year. Compare that with the $100 billion-plus Texas spends across public education annually for about 5.5 million government-school students, or roughly $19,000 per student on a broad all-in basis.

That means Texas could move toward a truly universal model, fund every child, expand real competition, and still potentially save at least $25 billion per year compared with the current bloated monopoly system.

And those savings should not disappear into more bureaucracy. They must be used to compress school district property tax rates to zero.

That is a much better path than continuing to pour more money into a government-school monopoly while barely increasing school choice at the margins.

Finish The Job

The lesson from this first year is not complicated. Texas started school choice. Good. Now finish it.

Move from capped choice to truly universal choice. Let funding follow the child, not the system. Stop treating educational freedom as a rationed carveout. Allow a real market where families choose, providers compete, and schools have to earn trust instead of relying on geography and politics.

That is how you get innovation, accountability, and customization. And that is how you stop feeding a monopoly that has had decades and billions of dollars to prove itself.

The demand is here. The families are ready. The waitlist proves it. Now lawmakers should catch up.

Three Takeaways for Policymakers

1. Treat TEFA as proof of demand, not proof of completion.

More than 274,000 applications show Texas families want far more educational freedom than lawmakers funded.

2. Move from capped choice to universal choice.

A program that likely funds only about 90,000 students out of 6.3 million school-age kids is a foothold, not a finish line.
3. Use universal choice to improve education and lower taxes.

A broader TEFA model could cost less than the current monopoly system and help create a path toward compressing school district property tax rates to zero.

The real victory is still ahead: a truly universal education market in the largest red state in America.