The Texas Comptroller just started mailing out the educational equivalent of Willy Wonka’s Golden Tickets, and Governor Abbott is already taking a victory lap like he just solved literacy. Around 42,600 kids in the “first priority tier” are being awarded Texas Education Freedom Accounts, which is a fancy, focus-grouped way of saying the state is finally handing out your tax dollars to help people pay for private school tuition. Because nothing says “commitment to public education” like a state-sponsored “escape the public system” fund.
In this first round, students with disabilities can snag up to $30,000 a year. To put that in perspective, that’s about three times what the state typically spends on a kid in the public system—the one that actually has to take every student who walks through the door. While the program is being pitched as a lifeline for the “underprivileged,” the data shows that 42% of the winners are White and nearly half were already enrolled in private schools or homeschooling. It’s less of a “rescue mission” and more of a mail-in rebate for families who had already decided the local ISD wasn’t good enough for them.
For the other 230,000-plus families who applied and didn’t make the cut, don’t worry—the state is holding a lottery next week for the “lower-income” Tier 2. It’s basically The Hunger Games, but instead of a bow and arrow, you’re fighting for a voucher to a school that can still legally show your kid the door if they don’t like their test scores or “fit.” If you don’t win the lottery, I guess your kid can just enjoy the “freedom” of staying in a Lubbock classroom with 28 other kids and a teacher who’s currently crowdfunding for Kleenex and pencils.
Governor Abbott says this paves the way for Texas to be the “#1 state for education,” which is an interesting take when you’re actively incentivizing people to leave the schools you’re supposedly in charge of. But hey, if the goal is to see how fast we can dismantle the concept of a “common good” while calling it “personal choice,” we’re definitely at the top of the class.
Who knew the best way to fix the public school system was to make sure as few people as possible actually use it?
Source:
