Texas Shattered a School Choice Record — Now It Needs to Break the Monopoly

Originally published on Substack.

According to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, more than 42,000 students applied for Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) on the very first day (Feb 4), setting a new national record for day-one applications in a school choice program.

By late the following morning, applications had already climbed past 46,000 students, and the Comptroller noted that the number will continue to grow as applications remain open through mid-March.

That level of demand is real. It’s encouraging. And it confirms what parents across Texas have been saying for years: families want more control over how and where their children are educated.

But lawmakers should not confuse a record-setting headline with a finished reform.

Record Demand, Limited Reach

Texas is enormous. With roughly 6.3 million school-age children, even 46,000 applications represent well under 1 percent of students statewide. On day one alone, the application rate was about 0.67 percent.

Now compare that with Tennessee’s ESA rollout, where 33,000 students applied on day one in 2025. Tennessee has about 1.1 million school-age children, meaning its day-one application rate was 2.93 percent.

Adjusted for school-age population, Tennessee’s demand for school choice was more than four times higher than Texas’, despite Texas grabbing national attention for total numbers.

​The takeaway is straightforward: Texas did not “solve” school choice. It revealed just how constrained the current program is relative to demand.
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What the Data Actually Show

The Comptroller’s release includes important details that deserve careful attention.

Of the students who applied on day one:

• 80.3 percent plan to attend a private school
• 19.7 percent plan to choose alternatives such as homeschooling
• 34 percent come from households below 200 percent of the federal poverty level
• 38 percent come from households between 200 and 500 percent of the poverty level

Nearly three in four applicants were placed into priority categories created by Senate Bill 2 in 2025, including students with disabilities and families with lower or middle incomes.

This matters for two reasons.

First, it directly undermines the claim that education savings accounts only benefit wealthy families. Parents from across the income spectrum are actively seeking alternatives because the current system is not working for their kids.

Second, it highlights the central flaw of the Texas approach: access is rationed. Lawmakers are deciding which families get freedom now and which families are told to wait, even though demand is widespread and immediate.

Two Funding Pots, One Structural Problem

Texas now operates two parallel education funding systems.

One is massive, automatic, and politically protected: the government-school system, funded largely through state appropriations and rising local property taxes.

The other is small, capped, and limited: TEFA.

As I explained in my earlier piece, “Two Pots, One Problem”, this structure is unsustainable. Sending limited dollars to ESAs while continuing to pump vastly more money into the same monopoly system parents are trying to leave guarantees weak competition and slow change.

Today, government schools in Texas ($100 billion) receive roughly 100 times more taxpayer funding each year than the ESA program ($1 billion). A system with that kind of imbalance will not meaningfully respond to competition. It will absorb it.

Why Partial Choice Will Eventually Backfire

Education savings accounts are not meant to be pilot programs or symbolic gestures. Their purpose is to change incentives across the entire education system.

Real competition:

• Forces schools to respond to parents rather than bureaucracies
• Rewards quality, innovation, and results
• Breaks the link between ZIP codes and opportunity

A limited ESA program does none of that at scale.

Worse, partial programs create long-term political risk. When tens of thousands of families apply and many are denied access, frustration grows. Over time, that frustration can be misdirected at school choice itself rather than at the artificial caps lawmakers imposed. That is how good reforms stall — or get blamed for failures they did not cause.

The Bigger Opportunity for Texas

Texas has an opportunity most states do not. By moving toward truly universal education savings accounts, lawmakers could:

• Let funding follow every student
• Introduce real competition into K-12 education
• Begin modernizing school finance
• Create a credible long-term path toward eliminating school property taxes

None of this happens overnight. But none of it happens at all if Texas locks itself into a permanently limited program.

Bottom Line for Lawmakers

The TEFA rollout proves one thing beyond doubt: parents are ready.

They applied in record numbers. They demonstrated demand across income levels. And they showed that the current program does not come close to meeting the need in a state as large and diverse as Texas.

If Texas wants better outcomes, real accountability, and a system built around families instead of institutions, more must be done — especially in a high-growth state like Texas.

The record is a starting point.

Ending the monopoly must be the goal.

Key takeaways for legislators and staff:

• Record applications confirm demand, not success
• Texas lags other states on a per-student basis
• Partial choice preserves monopoly power
• Universal ESAs are necessary for real competition
• School finance reform and lower property taxes depend on it

The question now is simple: will Texas stop halfway — or finish the job?