Public Schools Are on the Ballot: Why Gina Hinojosa’s Campaign Matters, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. June 8, 2026

Public Schools Are on the Ballot: Why Gina Hinojosa’s Campaign Matters

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

June 8, 2026

Today’s news about Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa’s
launch of “Team Texas Public Schools” could not come at a more urgent moment. Across Texas, school communities are being forc
ed to confront an unthinkable reality: neighborhood schools—beloved places where generations of children have learned, played, been fed, been loved, and been known—are being closed, consolidated, and destabilized.

Emilio, Gina, & me

It was an honor to stand with Gina today at the press conference she held at Pease Elementary this morning. CBS Austin below recorded the event so that you can view it, at least in part.

Here in Austin, the pain is immediate. Ten schools are closing. Families are grieving not simply the loss of buildings, but the loss of community, continuity, trust, and belonging. Anyone who has ever walked the halls of a neighborhood public school knows that a school is never just a school. It is where children learn their own worth. It is where teachers become lifelines. It is where parents build relationships. It is where democracy begins, one classroom, one child, one family at a time.

That is why Hinojosa’s words today matter: “It is not just you.” Austin families are not alone. This is happening across Texas. It is happening in communities large and small, urban and rural, Black, Brown, white, immigrant, working-class, and middle-class. It is happening because our public schools have been pushed to the brink by policy choices—choices that have starved districts, demoralized educators, politicized curriculum, over-tested children, and opened the door to privatization.

Let us be clear: school closures are not natural disasters. They are political outcomes.

For years, Texas leaders have told us that there is no money for public schools while finding money for vouchers, border militarization, tax giveaways, political theater, and the steady expansion of private interests into the public sphere. They have manufactured crisis and then offered privatization as the cure. 

They have treated our children’s schools as though they were expendable, especially when those schools serve communities of color, working families, emergent bilingual students, students with disabilities, and children whose parents lack the political power of wealthy donors.

This is why the fight for public education is inseparable from the fight for democracy.

Public schools are one of the last great public institutions where we still gather across difference. They belong to all of us. They are funded by all of us. They serve the common good. When they are weakened, the entire civic fabric weakens. When they are closed, communities lose anchors. When public dollars are diverted to private schools, the children left behind are our children, our neighbors, our students, our future.

Gina Hinojosa’s campaign speaks directly to this crisis because her own public life began in the struggle to save a neighborhood school. As a former Austin ISD trustee, a state legislator, a mother, and a longtime defender of public education, she understands that schools are not line items on a spreadsheet. They are living institutions. They carry history, memory, culture, language, and hope.

Her critique of vouchers as a scam resonates because vouchers do not create real choice for most families. They subsidize private options for some while draining resources from the public schools that educate the overwhelming majority of Texas children. 

They do not guarantee transportation. 

They do not guarantee admission. 

They do not guarantee services for children with disabilities. 

They do not guarantee accountability. 

What they do guarantee is that public money will flow away from public institutions at the very moment those institutions are being told to do more with less.

And the A–F accountability system, as Hinojosa rightly notes, has become part of this machinery. A state agency can design the test, control the rating system, shift the rules, and then declare schools “failing”—often without acknowledging the structural underfunding, poverty, language inequities, and policy instability that shape school outcomes. This is not accountability in any meaningful democratic sense. It is a system that too often punishes the very communities that deserve the most investment.

This is why voting matters.

We cannot mourn school closures and then stay home on Election Day. We cannot say we love teachers and then fail to defend them at the ballot box. We cannot lament what is happening to our children’s schools while allowing the same political leadership to continue dismantling them.

Getting out the vote is not a slogan. It is a responsibility. It means checking our registration, having a voting plan. It means helping our students, families, neighbors, elders, and young people understand what is at stake. It means offering rides, making calls, knocking on doors, sharing information, and refusing cynicism. It means remembering that democracy is not something we possess once and for all; it is something we practice, protect, and renew.

Texas is not a lost cause. Texas is a living struggle. And we are worthy foes against the oligarchs.

Every school closure meeting, every parent testimony, every teacher who stays late, every student who speaks up, every community member who refuses to accept austerity as destiny—these are signs that people still believe in the public good. They still believe that our children deserve better. They still believe that a multiracial, multilingual, working-family Texas has the right to govern itself.

This election must be about more than personalities. It must be about whether Texas will continue down the road of privatization, underfunding, censorship, and manufactured crisis—or whether we will choose a future rooted in public schools, public accountability, and public care.

Our children are watching. Our teachers are exhausted. Our families are hurting. Our communities are organizing.

Now we must vote like our schools depend on it—because they do.

Hinojosa launches program to fight Texas school closures, citing public school crisis

by Jahmal Kennedy | Mon, June 8, 2026 at 5:08 PM CBS Austin



Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa in Austin Monday, June 8, 2026.

As school districts across Texas, including Austin ISD, face budget crises and the threat of campus closures, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa is launching a new effort she says is aimed at helping communities fight back.

Hinojosa said Texas public schools are in dire condition.

“I will tell you that our public schools are on life support right now,” she said.

ALSO "It hurts": Austin ISD families look to keep community alive on final day for 10 campuses

Hinojosa announced a nonpartisan organizing program called Team Texas Public Schools. The program is designed to train parents, teachers and administrators to fight school closures in communities “getting hit the hardest.”

“Ten schools in this city alone in the school district are shutting down, but it is happening all over this state,” Hinojosa said.

Asked about Austin ISD’s budget process and closures, Hinojosa said, “WhatI think is important for the people of Austin to understand as they are in the trenches fighting this fight is that it is not just you.”

She also blamed Gov. Greg Abbott for the situation, saying, “And it is important for supporters of our public schools for parents and teachers to understand that Greg Abbott meant for this to happen.”

Abbott, Hinojosa’s November opponent, has focused his K-12 agenda on school vouchers in recent years. In February, Abbott celebrated what his office called “record-breaking school choice demand” after more than 100,000 families applied for vouchers.

Abbott said of vouchers: “Through this program, families will receive funds to send their children to a school that is the best fit for them.”

However, University of Texas at Austin professor Jennifer Keys Adair studies elementary and early childhood education, and says, "vouchers are definitely diverting funds from public neighborhood elementary schools."

She also added, "it seems like in this voucher conversation, oh, it will allow all families to be able to choose where they go to school. But we know that that's not what's happening," said Adair. She added more affluent families are more likely to get a voucher and said, "So in that case, you're furthering the kind of pressure on teachers and we're furthering the like lack of resources that we're offering to children who need it most."

Hinojosa said she opposes that approach.

“I don't believe in public school vouchers,” she said. Hinojosa even called it a "scam."

Austin ISD parent and former district principal Claudia Kramer Santamaria said she believes Hinojosa is the right advocate for Texas public schools.

“We understand as former principal and teacher that we needed to really have an advocate and I think that's what failed,” Santamaria said.

Hinojosa also criticized Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath for what she called a “rigged” A-F report card system, saying Morath gets to "make the [STAAR] test, rate the test, look at results, and then decide who fails and who passes," and added "And he rigs it to make it show what he wants it to show. And he wants it to show that our Texas public schools aren't strong. And he wants it to show that privatization is a better option."

Hinojosa said that if she becomes governor she would replace Morath.

Texas Taxpayers Will Fund Dozens of Private Schools that Openly Discriminate, by Josephine Lee, Texas Monthly, Jan. 13, 2026

Friends:

In a deeply reported investigation for the Texas Observer, staff writer Josephine Lee reveals that Texas’ newly enacted school voucher program—branded by Governor Greg Abbott as “education freedom”—will instead funnel public dollars to private schools that openly discriminate on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability status. 

Drawing on an analysis of 291 state-approved private schools serving students beyond kindergarten, Lee finds that more than 90 percent are religiously affiliated, over 100 prioritize or require students of a particular faith, and at least 60 maintain written policies excluding or disciplining LGBTQ+ students. 

Despite taxpayer funding of $10,474 per student (and up to $30,000 for students with disabilities), these schools are not required to accept all students, comply with Title IX, or provide meaningful special education services.

As Lee makes clear, the program’s structure all but guarantees exclusion rather than access. Many participating schools charge tuition above the voucher amount, offer little to no special education services, and retain broad discretion to reject applicants. Nik Nartowicz of Americans United for Separation of Church and State captures the core constitutional and moral concern succinctly: 

“Taxpayers should not be forced to fund someone else’s religion or discrimination; it’s a violation of taxpayers’ religious freedom.” 

Far from expanding educational opportunity, Lee’s reporting shows that Texas’ voucher scheme primarily subsidizes families already in private schools, drains resources from public education, and entrenches a two-tier system in which discrimination is not a side effect but a legally protected feature—one poised to grow into a multi-billion-dollar public entitlement. 

If this concerns you—as I believe it should—now is the time to act. I urge you to join Our Schools Our Democracy for its Week of Action, February 2–6, to demand transparency, defend taxpayer dollars, and insist on fairness for Texas public school students. Participants will be equipped with ready-to-use tools—including sample social media posts, an op-ed template, and a draft email to lawmakers—so you can take immediate, effective action.

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas Taxpayers Will Fund Dozens of Private Schools that Openly Discriminate
The state has signed off on voucher funds for schools that exclude non-Christian and LGBTQ+ kids.

by Josephine Lee | Texas Monthly | Jan. 13, 2026

Upon signing school vouchers into law last May, Governor Greg Abbott pronounced that he had delivered “education freedom to every Texas family.” But the billion-dollar program, which opens to parents on February 4, has enrolled dozens of private schools that openly discriminate against Texas families on the basis of religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity, according to a Texas Observer analysis of information gathered from the schools’ websites and handbooks, and survey responses and phone calls with school leaders.

The Observer gathered information about all 291 schools selected by the state that offer education beyond the kindergarten level. More than 90 percent are affiliated with or owned by a religious or faith-based group, the analysis found. More than 100 of those schools require or prioritize for admission students of the same faith, and more than 60 have a written policy that discriminates against LGBTQ+ students, the schools’ own data shows.

The Texas Comptroller’s office announced December 22 that nearly 600 private K-12 and early pre-K schools had already been enrolled in the Texas Education Freedom Account (TEFA) program, as the state vouchers have been dubbed. But only about half that were listed on its website as of January 1 serve students beyond kindergarten. The comptroller’s office, which administers the voucher program, has not provided comment for this story.

About 70 percent of these schools are concentrated in the greater metropolitan areas of Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin. Many rural Texas families will have no options; more than 180 of Texas’ 254 counties have no elementary, junior, or senior high schools enrolled so far.

Participating students in approved private schools will receive $10,474 for the 2026-27 school year—though students with special needs may receive up to $30,000 and homeschool students will receive $2,000. If applications for the voucher program exceed available funding, program rules state that the comptroller must prioritize applications of students with disabilities and lower incomes.

But these rules don’t guarantee student access to enrolled private schools.

The Observer’s analysis found that around a third of the schools enrolled in the program have a 2025-26 tuition that exceeds $10,474 and few offer special education services. Private schools generally increase rates every year, and the tuition excludes other fees and costs, such as registration, testing, sports, supplies, field trips, or uniforms.

Governor Greg Abbott in 2023 (Logan Hannigan-Downs/College Station Eagle via AP)

Unlike public schools, private schools are not required to accept all students and can weed out students through a lengthy admission process that requires recommendations, testing, and interviews. Chinquapin Preparatory School, a secular school in the Greater Houston area, only invites students to take an admissions test if they first pass a review of prior standardized test scores, report cards, and recommendations. Even after passing the exam, they still have to clear interviews and classroom observations.

In addition, around 40 percent of the religious schools have policies that favor students of their own faith and around 25 percent have policies that discriminate against LGBTQ+ students.

Nik Nartowicz, lead policy counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the organization has opposed private school vouchers for many years because of such inherent biases. “Taxpayers should not be forced to fund someone else’s religion or discrimination; it’s a violation of taxpayers’ religious freedom,” he told the Observer.

Of the participating schools included in the Observer’s analysis, 268 are religious—with 176 Catholic, 91 Protestant, and one Jewish. Only 23 are secular.

Of the 176 Catholic parochial schools, at least 40 percent prioritize admission of students from their own parish or other Catholic students, based on a review of policies posted on school websites and handbooks. For many of these schools, non-Catholic students are at the bottom of the priority enrollment list. For example, St. Theresa Catholic School in Austin prioritizes in order: children of faculty, siblings of current students, children of parishioners, children of alumni, and children of other Catholic parishes, before enrolling all other applicants, based on “alignment with the school’s mission and values” and assessment results.

“Parochial schools maintain admission requirements so we can faithfully live out our educational and spiritual mission,” Camille Garcia, Secretariat Director of the Diocese of Austin, wrote in response to the Observer’s inquiry on St. Theresa Catholic School’s admission policies. “These requirements are not meant to exclude, but to ensure alignment with the mission and with the parent’s vision for their children.”

About a third of the other participating 91 Christian schools bar from enrollment students who are not from Christian families, based on admission policies posted on websites and handbooks and some responses via phone calls. Some identify themselves as “covenant schools” that aim to only partner with Christian families in the education of their children, as opposed to “mission schools” with an evangelical objective. Many of these covenant schools require an applicant’s family to be professing Christians, to be active members of a Christian church, or provide a character reference from a pastor. That includes Conroe’s Lifestyle Christian School, whose website states: “For a student to be eligible for admission or re-enrollment, the family must be Christians, a member of an evangelical, Bible-believing church, and REGULAR in attendance at the church.” Even if families fit this criteria, its handbook states, “LCS reserves the right to decline admission or re-enrollment of any student at the sole discretion of the school’s administration.”

Lifestyle Christian School’s head of school Chris Brown did not respond to the Observer’s multiple requests for comment on the school’s admission policies.

Students enrolled in Christian schools generally have to attend chapel services and are taught scripture. But some of the approved schools also practice “Kingdom Education,” a religious education model that integrates the Bible into all subject-area instruction. For example, the the McAllen-based Covenant Christian Academy’s curriculum map for 8th Grade American History states that for all units from European settlement to the Civil War to the Industrial Revolution students will learn the guiding Biblical principle that begins with, “God is creator. All things, including time, were made by and for Himself” and ends with, “God’s plans for history are beyond my full comprehension.” Its curriculum map for a unit on “Prokaryotes and Viruses” for 9th Grade Biology states students will learn about creationism, the “success of pathogenic organisms as a result of the Fall and Curse,” and “disease as a result of sin.” Learning addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, according to its 3rd Grade Math curriculum map, means learning about the “absoluteness-immutability” of God.

Milton Gonzalez, executive director of Covenant Christian Academy declined to comment on the school’s curriculum for this story.

Covenant Christian Academy and other approved schools, like the First Baptist Academy in the San Antonio area, use textbooks from Abeka or Bob Jones University Press which have included inflammatory and controversial racist statements that describe slavery as “black immigration” and characterize slaves as “better investments than indentured servants.”

Christine Povolich, head administrator of the First Baptist Academy did not respond to the Observer’s multiple requests for comments on the school’s curriculum.

In 2005, the Association of Christian Schools International sued the University of California for religious discrimination because the university system had rejected credits from high school courses based on Abeka and Bob Jones textbooks. The attempt was quashed by a 2008 United States District Court for the Central District of California decision in favor of the University of California and a year later upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But Texas’ approval of schools that use these texts could raise more questions about whether these schools are appropriately preparing students for colleges.

For at least 25 percent of the 268 participating religious schools, behavioral expectations include adherence to strict sexuality and gender policies. Some of these schools forbid enrollment of or allow schools to kick out LGBTQ+ students, according to the Observer’s review of school handbooks.

Many Christian schools use the Association of Christian Schools International’s template “Statement on Marriage, Gender, and Sexuality,” which states that “rejection of one’s biological sex is a rejection of the image of God within that person,” that “‘marriage’ only has one meaning: the uniting of one man and one woman,” and that “any form of sexual immorality (including adultery, fornication, homosexual behavior, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, and use of pornography) is sinful and offensive to God.” The Bay Area Christian School in the Greater Houston area states in its handbook under a section called “Bay Area Christian School Lifestyle Stance” that “The school reserves the right to refuse enrollment or discontinue partnership when the atmosphere or conduct within a family or actions or stances of a student oppose the scriptural posture” of the school, including “immoral heterosexual activity, homosexual activity, bisexual activity, transgender activity, or sexual deviancy.”

Many Catholic schools included similar statements in their policies. For example, Catholic schools in the Diocese of Corpus Christi use “Human Sexuality: Guiding Principles for Catholic School Leaders,” which states that students will use names, pronouns, and facilities corresponding to their biological sex and that “expressions of a student’s sexual identity” and “expressions of a student’s disordered inclination for same‐sex attraction” are prohibited as they may cause “disruption or confusion regarding the Church’s teaching on human sexuality.” The Diocese also suggests conversion therapy should be used when school leaders identify gay and transgender students. The document states that school leaders should “encourage the family to seek the guidance of their pediatrician and counseling by a trained licensed professional who may be able to assist with this issue in accord with Catholic teaching and natural law.”

Katia Uriarte, director of communications for the Diocese of Corpus Christi, declined to comment for this story.

Bay Area Christian School’s Head of School Les Rainey did not respond to the Observer’s multiple requests for comment on the school’s admission policies.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 mandates that public schools prevent and redress sex-based and gender-based harassment of students in public schools. But “Private religious schools don’t have to have that framework,” said Paige Duggins-Clay, chief legal analyst at the Intercultural Development Research Association, a Texas education and civil rights policy organization. “Private schools can say our religious beliefs or our moral beliefs dictate that having a gender identity or sexual orientation that doesn’t conform with traditional male-female binaries is against our religion.”

Texas’ voucher law also states that private schools will not be considered “state actors,” thus restricting the state from “imposing requirements that are contrary to the religious or institutional values or practices of an education service provider.” Attempts during the legislative session to include anti-discrimination provisions in the voucher law were blocked.

Unlike public schools, private schools are also not required to enroll or provide special education services to students with disabilities that are otherwise required under federal law—so long as they don’t receive federal funding under those provisions.

Even though Texas’ voucher program prioritizes students with special needs, most private schools currently enrolled lack special education services. The Observer received information from 257 schools regarding special education services through a mix of survey responses, phone calls, or information from school handbooks. Of those, less than a dozen schools stated that special education services are available to students. If students with special needs are accepted, some schools said they provide limited accommodations, such as extended time for tests, preferential seating, small-group instruction, and testing; fewer schools offer services for dyslexia and dysgraphia or tutoring for extra costs. Most Catholic school handbooks include a statement similar to that by the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, which states, “Students with exceptional learning needs are admitted to the extent that the needs of students can be met within the scope of the programs and available resources on each campus.”

These private schools’ limited ability to provide special education services to students has not stopped private school leaders from encouraging families to obtain an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) to qualify for up to $30,000 in school vouchers. The Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops, for instance, has created a handout for parents instructing them how to request an evaluation for an IEP from their local public school district. (The Texas comptroller enacted rules requiring an IEP to qualify.)

Steven Aleman, senior policy specialist with Disability Rights Texas, which advocates for public school students with disabilities, told the Observer he’s concerned this will “only divert precious public resources away from remaining public school students with disabilities.”

State Representative Gina Hinojosa, a longtime voucher opponent who is running to be the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, told the Observer, “Make no mistake, every time they talk about ‘school choice’ they are actually taking options away from Texans.” She added that Abbott is “making taxpayers pay the tuition of families who are already enrolled in private school.” 

Gina Hinojosa on the House floor in May 2025 (Jordan Vonderhaar for the Texas 

Observer)

Last December, Brentwood Christian School in Austin held a webinar on the program for families whose students were already enrolled at the school. During the meeting, a parent expressed concern that the award-winning school would change if there was a “run of people” from public schools.

But President Jay Burcham eased their concerns. “We’re full,” Burcham said, explaining that the school only has 15 remaining seats across 14 grade levels. “We do not have to change our accommodations for anyone. We are Brentwood Christian school. This program is for the parents. You’re the beneficiary,” he said.

Burcham suggested students already enrolled in private schools would be prioritized. “It’s been said they want this first go-through to be more for the people who are already in private schools,” he said, later adding, “We want as many of our people in as possible.” During the webinar, Burcham instructed parents how to qualify for the program’s first priority tier for students with disabilities: “If you got the diagnosis, that’s step number one. … Then we have to work really hard with the school district to get an IEP in place.” Even if they don’t qualify for the priority slots, Burcham still encouraged existing Brentwood parents to apply.

In response to the Observer’s inquiry about the webinar, Burcham said the school also held an informational meeting including prospective applicants. But he wanted to make sure currently enrolled families knew they could also apply. “BCS tuition is quite a bit lower than most Central Texas private schools. Even with this lower tuition, we still have many families who receive financial aid subsidies through BCS. These are families who are making ongoing sacrifices to keep their kids in a private and parochial school environment, and they are an intended and welcome participant in the TEFA program, just like the students who may be using TEFA to transfer from a public school to a private school are intended and welcome participants,” Burcham wrote via email.

According to the voucher law’s fiscal note, the billion-dollar program could grow past $6 billion in the next biennium since the Legislature can appropriate more money to expand it to cover more students.

“We need you to register, because the intent is that they’re going to grow this,” Burcham told Brentwood parents during the webinar. “In other words, if you register, but you don’t get TEFA, in two years, you have a high likelihood. So, think of the long game.”

Josephine Lee is a staff writer at the Texas Observer. She has previously worked as an educator and community organizer. Her reporting on labor, environment, politics, and education has been featured in Salon, The Daily Beast, Truthout, and other outlets. She was raised and lives in Houston.

Texas Already Ran the Voucher Experiment—And the Results Should Alarm Us, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Texas Already Ran the Voucher Experiment—And the Results Should Alarm Us

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

January 7, 2026

Governor Greg Abbott’s successful push to pass school vouchers in the last legislative session (see Senate Bill 2), allows families to use public taxpayer dollars for private school tuition or related costs—a move he described as empowering for families. But Texas has already run a version of this experiment. And the evidence should give lawmakers and the public serious pause. Sadly, the advocacy community—comprised of students, families, educators, faith leaders, disability advocates, civic organizations, and policy experts—standing in opposition to the bill were ignored and the narrative that treated privatization as reform—regardless of the evidence—won out.

In “Texas Already Gives Public Ed Dollars to Private Operators. Here’s How That Worked Out,” authored by Josephine Lee in the Texas Observer documents how Texas’ Senate Bill 1882 charter “partnership” program—sold as a turnaround strategy for struggling public schools—has instead produced worse academic outcomes, weak oversight, and massive diversion of scarce public funds to private operators. While vouchers are now being sold as something new, SB 1882 reveals what actually happens when public education dollars are routed to private hands with few strings attached.

Passed in 2017, Senate Bill 1882 allows school districts to avoid state takeover by turning campuses deemed “failing” over to nonprofit charter operators or universities. These arrangements function much like vouchers in practice: public funds flow to private entities operating outside the full scope of public accountability, while school districts remain responsible for facilities, transportation, special education, and other core services. The risk is privatized; the costs remain public.

The results have been sobering. Charter operators received more than $735 million in state and federal funds, often with higher per-student allocations than district-run schools. Yet most partnership schools failed to improve academically. A majority of campuses that exited the program remained academically failing, many performed worse than before privatization, and nearly all missed the academic benchmarks written into their contracts. As multiple school board members acknowledged, the charter operators did not outperform traditional public schools—calling into question the very premise of privatization.

Equally alarming is the lack of regulation and financial accountability. Senate Bill 1882 partnerships operate under a separate, far weaker section of the Texas Education Code than either traditional public schools or open-enrollment charters. Oversight is largely contractual rather than statutory, creating space for missing audits, operating deficits, excessive administrative overhead, and six-figure executive salaries—all funded with taxpayer dollars. In some cases, operators were newly formed nonprofits with no proven track record, and some failed even to meet basic legal or reporting requirements in Texas.

This experiment unfolded against the backdrop of chronic underfunding. Texas already ranks near the bottom nationally in per-pupil spending, yet Senate Bill 1882 schools unlocked extra state funding, siphoning resources away from district-managed schools at a time of inflation, teacher shortages, and campus closures. In San Antonio ISD alone, more money was paid to private operators than the district’s annual deficit—even as the district shuttered schools and cut services.

This is precisely the danger posed by Abbott’s voucher program—only now at a much larger scale. As Lee’s reporting makes clear, privatization does not add resources to public education; it fragments and drains them. It does not strengthen accountability. It weakens democratic governance instead by shifting decision-making away from elected boards into private hands. Nor does it solve systemic inequities; it exacerbates them by diverting funds from the neighborhood public schools that serve the vast majority of Texas students.

Perhaps most troubling is the coercive logic underlying both Senate Bill 1882 and vouchers. Districts did not freely choose privatization; they were cornered by a punitive accountability system that threatened state takeover. Faced with closure or outsourcing, districts handed over schools and public dollars—even when evidence of success was thin or nonexistent. Vouchers now extend that same logic statewide, accelerating disinvestment under the banner of “choice.”

Texas has already tested what happens when public education dollars are handed to private operators with minimal guardrails. The results are now unmistakable: weaker oversight, inferior outcomes, and a steady hollowing out of public education. Abbott’s voucher program is not a new reform—it is the expansion of a failed one, and Texas students and communities together with taxpayers, will pay the price.

Texas Already Gives Public Ed Dollars to Private Operators. Here's How That Worked Out

by Josephine Lee, Texas Observer, May 13, 2025

At an April 2017 committee hearing in a meeting room tucked away in the Capitol’s underground extension, state Senator Paul Bettencourt, a bespectacled Houston Republican, touted a proposal of his then called Senate Bill 1882.

The bill was meant to “turn around” public schools the state had deemed failing by tapping nonprofit charter school operators to take over and implement “innovative practices,” Bettencourt promised. The new system would be a “model of efficiency,” New Braunfels Republican Donna Campbell added to a chorus of bipartisan support. Co-author José Menéndez, a San Antonio Democrat, later told the Texas Observer that he aimed to tap into charter operators’ “highest expertise.”

At the hearing, one public school advocate warned of the proposal’s high cost and lack of accountability, and another requested more protections for public school employees, but their testimonies were largely ignored, and SB 1882 passed.

Since then, 27 school districts across Texas have struck deals under the statute, allowing nonprofit organizations and a few public universities to collect taxpayer dollars to operate 129 public schools. Some cash-strapped school districts were simply motivated to participate by extra funding made available under the program, while others avoided impending state takeovers by inking their contracts. Under a 2015 law (strengthened in 2021), the Texas Education Agency (TEA) can depose an elected school board and take over a district if even one of its schools receives a failing rating (F, D, or Improvement Required) for five consecutive years in the state’s “A-F Accountability” system. SB 1882 created an escape hatch for districts—if they turned over their failing schools.

    José Menéndez (right) on the Senate floor in 2017 (Sam DeGrave)

Texas Higher Education at a Crossroads: Incentives Without Evidence Will Not Deliver Equity, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Texas Higher Education at a Crossroads: Incentives Without Evidence Will Not Deliver Equity

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

December 30, 2025

Recent reporting from the Texas Tribune makes one thing unmistakably clear. In his December 18, 2025 analysis, journalist Rob Reid draws on newly released longitudinal data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to show that while more Texas students are completing degrees and credentials than in years past, deep inequities persist. 

Overall attainment has inched upward, yet economically disadvantaged students—along with Black, Hispanic, rural, and first-generation students—remain far less likely to complete the journey through higher education. This uneven progress is not a puzzle to be solved nor is it accidental. Rather, it is the cumulative result of policy choices layered onto deeply unequal social and educational conditions.

Texas has taken steps to rethink how it funds readiness and completion, yet whether these steps meaningfully advance equity remains an open question. That said, the model is one that ties bonuses to college, career, and military readiness in K–12 together with a restructured finance system for community colleges, reflecting a shift away from seat-time accounting toward progress, momentum, and completion. In theory, these policies reward what matters. In practice, however, they raise questions the data cannot yet answer—and that policymakers may be eager to ignore.

First, incentives can redistribute attention without redistributing capacity. Schools and colleges serving high-poverty communities confront barriers—housing insecurity, work obligations, childcare needs, transportation breakdowns—that no performance formula can neutralize. Without sustained investments in advising, academic support, and students’ basic needs, outcomes-based funding risks rewarding institutions already positioned to succeed while leaving others further behind.

Second, measurement itself shapes behavior. What gets counted gets prioritized. When incentives emphasize short-term or easily documented outcomes, institutions may narrow pathways rather than expand opportunity—particularly for students whose educational trajectories are nonlinear and require time, flexibility, and sustained institutional support.

Third, these reforms are unfolding alongside an aggressive push to privatize education through vouchers. Diverting public dollars to private providers drains resources from the very public schools expected to produce better outcomes. You cannot systematically weaken public education and then fault it for uneven results. Well, I guess you can, but you shouldn't.

History matters here. Texas once understood that access drives attainment. The Texas Dream Act—adopted in 2001—expanded in-state tuition to undocumented students who had grown up in Texas schools. Research showed clear enrollment gains, particularly among Latino students, and Texas emerged as a national leader in pragmatic, workforce-aligned access policy. 

The repeal of that law did not improve outcomes; it constricted them. It removed a proven pathway to higher education for students Texas had already invested in—and whose talents the state still needs.

Reinstating the Texas Dream Act is not a symbolic gesture. It would be a data-aligned policy response to persistent attainment gaps and looming workforce shortages. Any serious conversation about outcomes must include restoring access to students intentionally pushed out by regressive policy reversals.

Texas has the data. Texas has the policy tools. What remains uncertain is whether state leaders—and voters—are willing to insist that equity, not privatization, guide the next phase of reform. Incentives alone will not save us. Public investment, inclusive access, and political courage might.

Policy and reporting can shape behavior, but incentives are not the same as evidence—especially when privatization undermines public capacity.

Finally, Texas must recommit to peer-reviewed, independent research to evaluate these largely untested policy shifts. Outcomes-based funding models, voucher expansion, and access rollbacks are being implemented at scale without the benefit of long-term causal evidence—particularly regarding their effects on low-income students and communities of color. 

Policy experimentation without rigorous evaluation is not innovation; it is risk. 

If Texas is serious about student success, it must fund and follow research that shows what works across differences in race, income, geography, legal status, and gender.

More Texas students complete journey through college, but low-income students still left behind
Economically disadvantaged students are much less likely to go on and attain degrees, according to new state data that tracks long-term outcomes.

By Rob Reid, GRAPHICS BY Alex Ford and Carla Astudillo

Dec. 18, 2025, 12:00 p.m. Central

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Texas has long failed to get most of its students the higher education credentials the workforce increasingly demands. But recent laws that reward schools for helping students succeed later in life could help the state make up lost ground, experts say.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board regularly tracks if students enrolled in eighth grade eventually receive a degree or certificate at a two- or four- year institution within the state.

The proportion of students who have received a degree has climbed over the last 15 years, according to data the board released in December 2025.

Still, the state appears to be far short of meeting workforce demand. Nearly three-quarters of U.S. jobs will require education or training after high school by 2031, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. In Texas, 25% of students obtained such education or training within the state. (The coordinating board didn’t track students who went out of state for college every year.)

Texas has long failed to get most of its students the higher education credentials the workforce increasingly demands. But recent laws that reward schools for helping students succeed later in life could help the state make up lost ground, experts say.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board regularly tracks if students enrolled in eighth grade eventually receive a degree or certificate at a two- or four- year institution within the state.

The proportion of students who have received a degree has climbed over the last 15 years, according to data the board released in December 2025.

Still, the state appears to be far short of meeting workforce demand. Nearly three-quarters of U.S. jobs will require education or training after high school by 2031, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. In Texas, 25% of students obtained such education or training within the state. (The coordinating board didn’t track students who went out of state for college every year.)


“Texas is a tale of two states,” says Jesse Hendrix, executive director of College Possible, a national nonprofit focused on supporting low-income students through college. “On one hand, Texas is the eighth largest economy in the world; on the other, Houston now holds the highest poverty rate of any major U.S. city.”

Nearly 80% of students in the Houston Independent School District are socioeconomically disadvantaged, compared to about 60% statewide. And only 15% of students from the district received a degree or certificate, compared to 25% statewide.

But Hendrix also notes that rural regions face their own challenges, including limited broadband access, sparse postsecondary options, and long commutes to reach college campuses.

Male students also lag behind female students, and Black and Hispanic students face lower completion rates than their peers.

Sharp dropout rates have long persisted as students journey through high school and college. More than a decade ago, former Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes called it “leakage in the pipeline”.

Economically disadvantaged students, males, and Black and Hispanic students are more likely to experience it.

Note: Outcomes are based on a cohort of students enrolled in Texas public schools in the 2013-14 school year. The study tracks if students receive a degree or certificate at a two- or four-year institution in Texas within 11 years of enrolling in 8th grade. Numbers may not add up to 100 because of rounding.
Source: Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
Credit: Alex Ford

Despite these shortcomings and disparities, Texas ranks near the middle nationally in degree attainment.

Texas historically pioneered innovative policies, but its competitive edge was lost as the state was rolling back some initiatives, which other states also adopted, experts said. More recent policies — including bonus funding for schools with college and workforce success — may help Texas regain its edge. But the impacts aren’t yet fully known.

“This combination of wide-ranging disparities, fast-changing policies, and bold outcomes-based reforms makes Texas both one of the most challenging and most opportunity-rich environments in the country,” Hendrix said.
Economic challenges

Higher ed credentials are “one of the most reliable pathways to economic stability and long-term mobility,” according to Will Davies, the director of policy and research at Breakthrough Central Texas, a nonprofit focused on supporting first-generation students.

Davies notes that “even short-term credentials and associate degrees are associated with meaningfully higher earnings compared to a high school diploma alone,” citing a wage analysis by Commit Partnership.

But students from working-class and low-income families have to weigh more heavily the cost of college and household responsibilities with a shot at greater economic security, Davies said. He stressed that taking breaks away from post-high school education or training — often called “stopping out” — can backfire.

“Students who delay or stop out often accumulate debt without earning a credential, limiting both their earning power and their confidence in returning to school later,” he said.

Staying on track can be particularly difficult for economically disadvantaged students, according to Ann Vlach, who oversees Education to Employment Partners, a nonprofit that helps agencies in the Corpus Christi region support students as they progress through college. Things like work commitments, car repairs, and the need to line up child care can derail student progress, she said.

“It’s much harder to get back into that system once you’ve stepped away from it,” she said.

Look up student outcomes for your school district

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Note: Outcomes are based on a cohort of students enrolled in Texas public schools in the 2012-13 school year. The study tracks if students receive a degree or certificate at a two- or four-year institution in Texas within 11 years of enrolling in 8th grade. The district-level data is one year older than the statewide data released this week by the state. District types are based on Texas Education Agency categories.

Source: Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board
Credit: Carla Astudillo, Rob Reid.

Shifting policy, middle-of-the-pack results

Compared to other states, Texas has hovered around the “middle of the pack,” depending on the year and metric, said Carlo Castillo, a data analyst with Texas 2036, a nonprofit working on pressing statewide issues such as workforce development. He further noted that while Texas higher ed attainment accelerated in the past ten years, it’s still close to the national average.

In 1997, Texas created the Top 10% Plan, a first-of-its-kind program guaranteeing admission to high school students in the top 10% of their class. Then in 2001, Texas was the first state to provide in-state resident tuition for undocumented youth with the Texas Dream Act.

“Those types of policies tend to be impactful for student outcomes,” said Brian Holzman, an assistant professor at Texas A&M, who researches demographic gaps in higher ed attainment.

Holzman pointed to research from 2010 by Stella Flores, then an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, who uncovered a sharp enrollment boost among foreign-born Latinos in Texas and other states that allowed undocumented students to pay in-state tuition.

But Texas rolled back these policies, undermining their aim to address disparities. Undocumented students in Texas no longer qualify for in-state resident tuition or state-distributed aid.

The Top 10% plan can slightly increase the number of students of colors automatically admitted into Texas colleges. But, Holzman said, it does not increase the number of students of color as much as race-conscious admission policies had. Amidst these changes, Hendrix said that College Possible has recently experienced a steep increase in requests for help from students and school districts in Texas trying to navigate the challenges of applying for and obtaining financial aid.

“Students are facing the consequences of newly regressive policies, such as a repeal of the Texas Dream Act, which directly fuels the affordability crises for many currently enrolled college students and those that are considering their next move after high school,” he said.
Promising Texas policies

Across Central Texas, the E3 Alliance partners with higher ed, employers, nonprofits, and policymakers to develop the student pipeline.

“The playbook is already in place for Texas and the eighth largest economy in the world, to really put together this massive workforce,” said Kyle Seipp, Senior Director at E3, which focuses on higher education and workforce development.

He points to some policies already in place that should help more students attain the degrees or certificates they need:The College, Career, or Military Readiness Outcomes Bonus, which was established in 2019, provides bonus funding to school districts with the highest rates of students who finished high school ready for college or the workforce. To address demographic disparities, this bonus is provided in separate categories for economically disadvantaged students, non-economically disadvantaged students and special education students.
A 2023 law restructured community college funding to incentivize schools that demonstrate students are making progress toward obtaining a workforce credential and completing college, rather than just boosting enrollment.

Because the state tracks the outcomes of students over the course of many years, the impacts of these laws won’t be apparent until the coordinating board has time to track whether recent eighth-graders end up attending or completing college or training programs.

Grace Atkins, a policy advisor at Texas 2036 focused on workforce and postsecondary education, is encouraged by these laws and thinks Texas is ahead of the pack with funding models based on student outcomes.

“Outcomes-based funding is something that is talked about a lot nationally, but Texas, more so than any other state, really, really emphasized that,” she said.

Vlach, with Education to Employment Partners, said the student outcomes bonus should help districts cover the costs of academic advising, which will aid students in filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, and preparing them for college admissions tests.

To help keep districts on track to earn a bonus, Vlach carefully tracks the outcomes data as it’s being updated and presents it to principals and superintendents every month.

“If we’re starting to see that we’re struggling with getting FAFSA done, if we’re doing that data once a month, it gives us a very active chance to pivot on that and do a FAFSA workshop,” she said. “Pull in more parents, do whatever we need to do to make that happen.”

“Same thing with testing,” she added. “If we’re not seeing testing happen, we can actually go in and say, like, hey, it’s time to do a testing workshop.”

About this analysis

Data for this analysis was obtained from the Texas Higher Ed Coordinating Board. We tracked outcome results for eighth grade students between the 1997-98 and 2013-14 school years and combined them into one longitudinal dataset.

The agency’s 8th Grade Cohort Longitudinal Study, now known as the Texas Talent Trajectory, tracks groups of Texas public school eighth graders over 11 years. This data is broken down by race/ethnicity, gender and economic status.

What We Refuse to Learn About Standardized Testing: Dr. Gerald Bracey and the 89th Legislature, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

What We Refuse to Learn About Standardized Testing: Dr. Gerald Bracey and the 89th Legislature

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

December 4, 2025

Learn more about Dr.
Bracey here.

When I revisited Gerald W. Bracey’s 2009 commentary in Educational Leadership, I was struck by how uncannily prophetic it feels in this political moment—especially in light of the sweeping changes enacted by the 89th Texas Legislature in 2025. Best known for his famous "Bracey Reports," his critique of the nation’s “test mania” reads not as a relic of a bygone era but as a warning flare we failed to heed, one whose consequences unfolded vividly during last session’s battles over testing, accountability, and privatization (see Valenzuela, 2025, for discussion).

While public school advocates secured incremental gains—slightly less disruptive testing policies, quicker turnaround on results, the elimination of a handful of assessments, and improved transparency—the underlying system remains largely intact. Schools are still judged primarily by test scores, accountability frameworks remain narrowly defined, and the deeper structural reforms that advocates have long demanded are once again deferred (Valenzuela, 2025). In this vacuum, the push for charterization and privatization only accelerates. 

Even so, there was a brief moment of meaningful political possibility: Texas lawmakers introduced proposals to overhaul or even eliminate the STAAR exam altogether. Raise Your Hand Texas, in particular, deserves a shout-out for leading the charge. For the first time in decades, a major statewide assessment regime came under serious legislative challenge, and the House even passed a bill to move the state away from STAAR. Yet despite the symbolic significance of this breakthrough, the effort stalled—revealing just how entrenched the test-based accountability system remains.

Bracey began with an observation so commonsensical that many policymakers today still stumble past it: no standardized test can ever know a child better than the teacher who sees that child every day. Yet over a fifty-year span, he noted, the United States managed to devolve from viewing tests as occasionally useful tools, to treating them as compulsory, and finally elevating them into the dominant—almost exclusive—measure of educational quality.

Even though tests like NAEP, PISA, TIMSS, or STAAR were never designed to evaluate teaching, curriculum, or the complex, relational work of schooling, policymakers have repeatedly misappropriated them for exactly those purposes. The result, Bracey argued, has been a national preoccupation with numerical indicators that flatten the human reality of learning, obscure the deeper conditions shaping students’ educational lives, and induce undue stress on teachers and the teaching profession.

That critique feels especially urgent in Texas today. This year, the Legislature passed a statewide voucher program that redirects public funds into private schools, one that rests on the long-standing assumption that public schools are failing (Edison, 2025). This assumption gets reinforced year after year through simplistic interpretations of test scores. 

These debates echo Bracey’s core argument: when policy decisions hinge on flawed measures, those decisions inevitably warp the system they intend to improve. Vouchers, sold as a remedy for supposedly failing schools, rely on the very test-based narratives Bracey spent a lifetime challenging. The claim that low standardized test scores reflect poor teaching ignores the deep structural factors shaping learning in Texas—poverty, segregation, underfunding, and what we are by now discovering as the soaring costs (or "price") of privatization. 

Yet these structural realities rarely appear in the public conversation. Instead, test scores are brandished as evidence that public schools are beyond repair, clearing the political path for vouchers, school district takeovers, and the redirection of taxpayer dollars into private hands.

The fight over STAAR reveals a similar contradiction. Legislators across the spectrum have acknowledged that STAAR tells parents little about what their children actually know and does nothing to inform day-to-day instruction. These critiques echo Bracey almost word-for-word. Still, unless Texas reimagines assessment from the ground up—beginning with teaching rather than measurement—any replacement risks replicating the same distortions. Bracey insisted that the best assessments are those built by teachers and anchored in teacher-made curricula, not imposed from above. 

Bracey also challenged the persistent belief that national or international test scores determine economic success. He reminded readers that Japan continued to dominate global assessments even as its economy faltered, and that countries like Iceland maintained high scores while facing economic collapse. 

The notion that bubbling in answers on a fourth- or eighth-grade exam shapes global competitiveness is, to use Bracey’s word, “easily refuted.” Yet Texas, like much of the nation, continues to tie student outcomes to broader narratives about economic health and workforce readiness, despite overwhelming evidence that economic forces are far larger than any test score.

Bracey’s insistence on returning to the human, relational work of teaching feels especially vital. Public schools are not failing; they are absorbing the accumulated burdens of inequality, political interference, and relentless underfunding—burdens that privatization schemes will only intensify. Vouchers will not solve the challenges facing Texas students. Nor will another standardized test, no matter how politically appealing.

Bracey’s enduring message is that education is not a number. It is not a rank, a percentile, or a scaled score. It is the web of relationships, communities, and possibilities that unfold when schools are supported rather than scapegoated. If Texas is serious about creating a stronger and more equitable education system, then we must move beyond the illusions spun by test scores and invest once again in teachers, teacher-made curriculum, and public schools as public goods.

In this critical moment, Bracey’s voice reminds us that the greatest danger is not that our tests show too little—but that we have come to believe they show too much.

Reference

Bracey, G. W. (2009). Multiple measures. Educational Leadership, 67(3), 32–37.

Edison, J. (2025, May 3). Private school vouchers are now law in Texas. Here’s how they will work. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/05/03/texas-school-vouchers-greg-abbott-signs/

Valenzuela, A. (2025, September 15). Accountability without justice: The continuing agenda to demonize K–12 public schools to set the stage for further privatization. Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas, https://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2025/09/accountability-without-justice.html