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