More than 130,000 Texas families have already applied for the state’s new $1 billion school voucher program, signaling a major shift in how public education dollars could flow beginning in the 2026-27 school year.
Approved under Senate Bill 2 during the 89th legislative session, the Texas Education Freedom Accounts will allow eligible families to use up to $10,474 per child in taxpayer funds for private school tuition and other approved educational expenses.
As the program advances, Black families in Houston are asking a critical question: Will this expand opportunity or pull resources from the very schools that serve them most?
According to a University of Houston and Texas Southern University study, 70% of Black adults supported creating a school voucher program, and 72% supported school vouchers that only benefit low-income families.
Black adults were found to agree with arguments against school voucher legislation, like “vouchers/ESAs funnel money away from already struggling public schools” and “vouchers/ESAs provide funding to private schools and individuals with only limited accountability for how the funds are used.”
“It’s not enough to cover private school”
Christian Alexander, a Houston ISD parent, said the voucher amount is not enough to cover the full cost of many private schools and does not solve transportation challenges.
“I don’t think it’s going to expand opportunities for Black students just because the amount of money that they have allocated for each student isn’t enough to cover the cost of like private school in the state of Texas,” Alexander said. “There are a good number of Black people who can afford it, but the majority of us cannot.”
Private school tuition in Texas often exceeds voucher amounts, especially in major cities.
“For low-income families, the promise of school choice is often misleading,” said Gabriel Huddleston, associate professor and director of the Center for Public Education and Community Engagement at Texas Christian University. “The average private school tuition in Texas exceeds the typical voucher amount, leaving many families unable to afford private schooling even with assistance. Additionally, private schools are not required to accept all students, meaning that voucher programs do not guarantee access to better educational opportunities.”
Transportation and additional costs of books and uniforms are other barriers, Alexander said.
“A lot of these schools are not placed in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Here in Houston, in areas where Black people live predominantly, there are a lot of people who do not have cars.”
Christian Alexander
“A lot of these schools are not placed in predominantly Black neighborhoods,” Alexander said. “Here in Houston, in areas where Black people live predominantly, there are a lot of people who do not have cars.”
He also expressed concern about private school accommodations for children with disabilities.
“Kids having IEPs [Individualized Education Program] is very common in our community,” he said.
Under state and federal reporting requirements tied to IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), the Texas Education Code, and the Texas Administrative Code, public schools must serve students with disabilities.
Private schools that accept voucher students may not be bound by the same requirements, depending on the program’s structure, according to the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB).
UH Report
The University of Houston report states that several Houstonians “overestimate” the scope of vouchers and believe the funds would benefit higher-income families more.
“To be clear, SB 2’s subsidies for private schooling will come at the expense of Texas public schools,” said Maria P. Pérez Argüelles, a report co-author and research assistant professor at the Hobby School. “However, the modest scale of the program will limit the short-term budgetary impacts during the 2026-27 school year.
“The fiscal doomsday scenarios voucher opponents fear most would require a substantial increase in appropriations during a future legislative cycle, a choice that lawmakers could debate as early as 2027.”
The report goes on to demystify another misconception about who is eligible to receive subsidies.
The bill prioritizes students with disabilities from low- to middle-income families, followed by students from low- to lower-middle-income families, middle-income families, and, finally, higher-income families.
Fear of draining neighborhood schools
For many families, one concern is what happens to schools with declining enrollment, spurred by the voucher program.
Education funding in Texas is largely tied to student enrollment. Thus, when a student leaves, they take with them their state-funded allotment, even though fixed costs, like facilities and staffing, remain.
“So you got less kids, you got less funds for the school to be able to operate, which is to put more strain on the community,” Alexander added. “In the historically Black communities, these families need these schools as a version of child care, as a version of counseling, ways to be able to make sure that their kids are able to eat adequately.”
Malkia Hutchinson, a Fort Bend County parent with a daughter in private school, said she will not apply for Texas’ $10,000 voucher program.
Although her family pays about $15,000 a year in tuition after financial aid (with full tuition at ~$27,000), she believes the voucher amount is insufficient to cover private school costs.
She is also concerned that the program will further defund public schools, particularly in Black and brown communities, and worsen funding challenges in school districts such as HISD and Fort Bend ISD.
Hutchinson also worries that private school tuition tends to rise annually and may increase further in states with vouchers, reducing the long-term benefit of the subsidy. She encourages parents to carefully research the financial realities before applying.
For the 2024-2025 school year, Houston private school tuition costs $26,896, up nearly 5% from the 2023-2024 academic year and 21.3% since before the pandemic.
“This will mostly benefit kids who are already getting private education and not doing what it’s being touted to do, which is to give under-resourced kids more opportunity to go to a private school because $10,000 is not generally going to cover enough of a tuition cost on top of books and uniforms and everything else,” Hutchinson said.
Concerns about diversity and belonging
Parent Stacy Moore said her hesitation about private schools is not just financial, but also social and psychological.
“It’s just not fair, and I struggle with sending my child to a class where they’re going to be the only Black student in their grade,” Moore said. “My kids go to public schools, they have Black teachers, they have other Black, Hispanic, Asian students, and that to me is more. That’s what our city looks like. That’s what our world looks like.”
She also noted that private schools can set their own admissions policies.
“They can pick and choose,” Moore said. “They can turn kids down.”
A different experience: “It’s a wonderful thing”
Not all Black parents see vouchers as a threat.
Sekou Browne, a Houston father whose daughter attends a virtual STEM-focused private program called HomeSTEM Academy, said the voucher could be transformative for families like his.
“This school’s about a little under $9,000 for the full year,” Browne said, adding he is a “big proponent” of the voucher program. With a $10,000 voucher, “you won’t have to pay anything for tuition once the voucher sets in.”
For his family, two parents working in tech with flexible schedules, a self-paced, home-based model works well.
“The cool thing about homeschool,” he said, is the ability to tailor learning and invest in tutoring where needed. The voucher, he said, would allow them to “plug holes” and prepare their daughter for early college coursework.
But he acknowledged that this model depends on time and capacity at home.
“In unique cases, it can be great for Black folks,” Browne said. “It’s not for everybody.”
Families who have applied
Margaux Rodgers, who has two daughters, one in the eighth grade and one in the fifth grade, said she wanted to apply for the vouchers after observing that her neighborhood schools lacked the curricular rigor in math, science, and English she expected.
Rodgers said that despite her older daughter getting bullied in school, the issue was not addressed.
“I didn’t want my younger daughter to have to go through those same experiences,” she said, adding that it compelled her to research vouchers for her younger daughter when she entered middle school.
When the applications opened, she chose the Divine Savior Academy in Missouri City, which has an annual fee of roughly $16,000. If Rodgers’ application is approved, she would have to spend $6,000 out of pocket.
Rodgers said the voucher application was “very simple” and asked for identification documents, the family’s tax statements, the school district she was in, and the school she was applying to.
As a teacher for over a decade, she was skeptical at first, as she knew “how important it is for state funds to help the school run.”
But the pros outweighed the cons.
“Knowing that schools will be losing money…that would also be hurting the public schools, especially if my student and my daughter stayed in it,” Rodgers explained. “But I’m more concerned now about my child’s welfare and well-being moving forward versus keeping her in public school just so other public schools don’t suffer.”
A school founder sees expanded access
Dr. Takisha Bolden-Gastile, the founder of HomeSTEM Academy, said vouchers could remove financial barriers for families already considering alternative education.
The fee is $9,000 right now. With vouchers, “that would be $0 for their tuition,” she said.
Her school uses a parent-partnership model, where families are closely involved in students’ daily learning.
Bolden-Gastile said the voucher program could help families who want a more personalized or home-based experience.
Choice for some, strain for others?
As Texas prepares to execute its voucher program in 2026-27, Black families in Houston are balancing the appeal of flexibility and customized learning against financial realities, transportation barriers, special education protections and the risk of draining already underfunded neighborhood schools.
For some, the $10,474 allotment could open doors to alternatives that better fit their children’s needs. For others, it falls short of soaring private tuition and rising ancillary costs.
