Two years after a Central Texas school district abruptly scotched plans to set up an unprecedented voucher program, another public school system in North Texas is considering the same scheme. In August 2022, despite an aggressive push by Republican operatives and the apparent tacit backing of Texas Education Agency commissioner Mike Morath, a majority on the Wimberley school board decided the academic, financial, and legal risks of a proposal to divert public dollars to fund private school educations were too great. They heeded the recommendation of their new superintendent, who complained to the trustees about an “overt and covert” intimidation campaign and warned that the funding stream would mostly flow to the middlemen.

But the backers of the plan—a politically connected charter chain called Responsive Education Solutions and a small nonprofit started by Dallas hotelier and GOP donor Monty Bennett—weren’t deterred. In January 2023, as Governor Greg Abbott commanded the Legislature to pass a voucher program, the activists went to another right-wing school board: that of Princeton ISD, a fast-growing district in Collin County, north of Dallas. 

More than a year and a half later, the Princeton school district is still negotiating with Bennett’s Texas Foundation for Education Rights over a contract. The process has exacerbated divisions among the trustees and prompted tense marathon work sessions. Even the most enthusiastic backers of TFER’s proposal have complained about the foundation’s sporadic communication, and an attorney for the district has repeatedly voiced concerns about the lack of information from TFER about the implication of its plans. One Princeton board member, Bob Lovelady, a longtime educator whose name graces an area high school, has ripped other members for pursuing what he views as a risky deal for the A-rated district. 

TFER’s proposal is novel. Under a 2017 Texas law, school districts can partner with nonprofits, universities, and other entities to establish new charter schools. There are currently almost a hundred such partnerships. Austin Independent School District, for example, partners with the United Way for Greater Austin, a nonprofit that tackles poverty, on a pre-K program. San Antonio ISD has joined with the Alamo Colleges District on a trio of high schools where students earn college credits while working toward their diplomas. Under the 2017 law, the external partners exercise near-autonomy over the charter campuses, and the districts can receive additional funding from the state. 

The TFER proposal goes far beyond what lawmakers imagined. Instead of a local physical campus, students from all over Texas would enroll in “the Lone Star School,” a new Princeton ISD campus in name only. The students would actually attend classes at private schools across the state. Princeton would have almost no say over the education of the school’s new students. 

According to internal school board documents, including drafts of a contract, TFER would subcontract with Responsive Education Solutions, a nonprofit charter chain based in the DFW area with ties to Governor Greg Abbott, to provide unspecified “support services,” though details are hazy. TFER, which is governed by Bennett; his wife, Sarah Zubiate Bennett; and Aaron Harris, a Republican political consultant, will have final control over curriculum, instructional materials, and personnel. It’s an odd confection: a student in, say, Brownsville could be educated at a TFER-approved Catholic academy in the Rio Grande Valley as part of Princeton’s Lone Star School, partially funded by tax dollars generated across Texas. Students would be required to take the same STAAR achievement tests as those in public schools, and poor ratings could affect Princeton’s overall accountability rating.

“This is just another glorified way of having a voucher type of system,” Lovelady told Texas Monthly. “I don’t know how you run for a public school board position and say you’re for public schools but want to send your taxpayer money somewhere else.” The Princeton district, he says, would see only a small fraction of the revenue—perhaps as little as $300 per student, according to a recent draft contract—while the remainder would flow to Responsive Education, TFER, and the private schools. With as many as 17,000 students projected to enroll in the program within five years, the annual revenues could amount to $150 million or more. ResponsiveEd and TFER aren’t acting “out of the goodness of their heart,” said Lovelady. “They’re doing it because it has potential to make them a return on their investment.”

Bennett, who declined an interview but responded to some questions over email, bristles at such accusations. “The purpose of TFER is to bring quality education opportunities to those kids that can’t otherwise access them,” he wrote in an email to Texas Monthly. “That’s it. No other agenda. TFER’s plan might not ultimately accomplish this, but we are going to try.” He added that neither he nor his wife—who are slated to serve as two of the three board members for the new campus—will “make any money in this endeavor, either directly or indirectly.” 

An official at Responsive Education did not respond to questions we sent her about the proposal.

Like Wimberley, Princeton is a fast-growing district with excellent schools that faces mounting budgetary pressures. The superintendent, Donald McIntyre, said his student population is growing faster than his ability to finance new buildings. Simultaneously, its board has undergone a transformation—from a largely nonpartisan body focused on tax rates and academic excellence to a squabblefest dominated by an ideological faction of the GOP that is animated by drag shows, library books, and pronouns. The most persistent controversy centers on the district’s decisions this year to ban two different LGBTQ groups from holding Pride events on school grounds. In letters to the district, the ACLU called the bans “unconstitutional” and constituting “discrimination.” 

The culture wars eagerly fought by right-wing boards aren’t entirely new. But until recently, it would have been unthinkable for the elected leaders of public schools to embrace vouchers—long considered rat poison for public education. TFER has primarily pitched its plan as a moneymaker for Princeton. “You guys need money,” Harris told the trustees in January 2023. His proposal came with few risks, he assured the board. “Financially, there is nothing but upside.” (Harris’s pitch is perhaps somewhat complicated by his low opinion of public schools. In 2022, he wrote on Twitter, “ISD’s are evil. They will take the money, run, and not lower my taxes.”)

The foundation has pledged to “cover any revenue shortcomings,” though it has not provided details of its financial model, including whether Bennett or others would personally pledge to cover any gaps. (Bennett did not clarify when asked about his role.) 

In a planning document, TFER says tuition would be “free of charge” and that it “anticipates that a majority of students will be both educationally and economically disadvantaged.” Bennett told me the goal is to “help children that attend poorly performing schools, not to help children (or their parents) that currently attend private schools or high performing public schools and/or charters.” But it’s unclear how TFER would create a program primarily benefiting low-income students. In the planning document, the nonprofit acknowledges that the children it would target are “likely those already attending [private schools].” Open-enrollment charters aren’t allowed to consider income in enrolling students, says Brian Whitley, a spokesperson for the Texas Public Charter Schools Association. In states that have implemented wide-scale voucher programs, the evidence suggests that high-income families have been the primary beneficiaries. 

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The TFER proposal is audacious—perhaps fatally so. Internal emails show that Princeton leaders have struggled to get satisfactory answers from TEA commissioner Mike Morath and TFER on dozens of questions, including how private schools would be selected, whether parochial schools would be allowed to offer religious instruction to children supported by public tax dollars, how TFER and ResponsiveEd would ensure that the curriculum meets state standards, how TFER could ensure private schools wouldn’t discriminate on the basis of race or religion or special education status, and whether the Princeton school district or TFER would be held responsible if the partnership crumbles. 

In the case of Wimberley, the deal fell through in part because the board decided the risks outweighed the benefits. Princeton leaders, like those in Wimberley, clearly anticipate lawsuits; they have frequently asked TFER for assurances that the school district wouldn’t bear liability for litigation.

Cyndi Darland, the president of the Princeton ISD board, demurred when I pressed her on the details, saying the proposal was a work in progress. “We have the best interests of our school district at heart, and we are not going to sacrifice our school district at all, ever,” she said. “If we can benefit everybody in Texas on top of benefiting Princeton, then it would be a go.”

When I reached Darland in May, she was recovering from a car accident. She expressed disappointment at not being able to attend the Texas GOP convention, at which delegates approved a plank in the platform calling for school funding to “follow the student with no strings attached”—a core concept in voucher programs. Darland, a retired public school teacher and soccer coach, shares this view. “This is not the government’s money,” she said. “It’s those parents’ money. And they should be able to spend it the way they want to spend it. Period. That’s just a no-brainer. We’re in America, for Pete’s sake. We’re not in Russia.”

But voucher skeptics such as Lovelady aren’t so easily dismissed as communists. A conservative Christian, Lovelady spent a career in Texas public education. His doubts have much to do with the way the plan has unfolded: in his view, as a top-down imposition by political actors with an agenda. “We [the Princeton ISD board] talk a good game sometimes about being honest and being open, not hiding anything,” he said. “But there are questions in my mind that started from the very beginning.”

While school vouchers command broad support among Republican voters, the cause has been most enthusiastically embraced—and funded—by wealthy activists. Bennett, the Dallas hotelier, has been particularly aggressive. In recent years, he has poured more than $75,000 into ideologically aligned school board candidates and PACs, according to an analysis by the Texas Observer. Several of those candidates have gone on to win office, where they’ve waged war over the culture issues that have made headlines across the nation. Some North Texas districts with right-wing boards—including Princeton’s—have also joined Texans for Excellence in Education, a nonprofit linked to Bennett that positions itself as a right-wing alternative to the Texas Association of School Boards. 

In 2022, Bennett backed two nonincumbent candidates for the Princeton school board, donating $10,000 to Julia Schmoker, a former educator and Army veteran, and $5,000 to John Campbell, a retired Army veteran. In an unusual foray into ostensibly nonpartisan races, the Texas GOP endorsed both candidates. Schmoker and Campbell won, giving the hard-right faction a 4–3 majority on the board. Darland was promptly elected president. 

A few months later, in January, the trustees agreed to explore a partnership with TFER. At the same meeting, the trustees also voted 5–2 to hire an attorney, Timothy Davis of Fort Worth, to serve as legal counsel on matters in which the board might have distinct legal interests apart from those of the district as a whole. In recent years, Davis has been hired by at least four boards with right-wing majorities. 

During the meeting, Lovelady criticized the hire as a “rash decision,” pointing out that no other lawyers were considered and that Princeton already has contracts with experienced school attorneys who represent the district as a whole, not just the board. The chaotic meeting seemed to suggest a slapdash effort. After a member of the hard-right faction, Duane Kelly, made a motion to hire Davis, the superintendent—Donald McIntyre—interjected that Davis hadn’t even been asked about his fee. (“I charge four hundred an hour,” Davis offered.) 

For Lovelady, the bigger significance is that Davis has also done legal work for TFER—a fact Lovelady says wasn’t disclosed to all the trustees until February 2024, during an executive session closed to the public. Davis, he says, has attended meetings at which the TFER contract was discussed.

Davis declined to comment on the record, and the descriptions of his legal services are redacted on the invoices submitted to Princeton ISD. Still, there is no evidence he has worked on the TFER contract, and McIntyre said Davis’s work “primarily” involved negotiating the superintendent contract.

Bennett defended his involvement in Princeton. “It makes perfect sense for me to want to financially support trustees that support this partnership,” Bennett wrote. “Mr. Lovelady is just trying to stir up trouble because he is not in favor of the partnership.”

McIntyre, the superintendent, told Texas Monthly that TFER had a lot of work to do to convince him. “Until I have some level of guarantee that Princeton students would not be harmed by doing a project like this, it’ll be difficult for me to recommend moving forward.”

Over the last four decades, the Legislature has repeatedly rejected private school vouchers. Perhaps that will change in 2025, when the Legislature welcomes new Republican members—many of them generously funded by wealthy voucher proponents in Texas and outside it—who defeated antivoucher incumbents. Nose counters think there should be enough votes to pass some kind of voucher program. But until then, spending tax dollars on private schools is verboten. I asked Bennett: Why not just wait to see what the Legislature does? Why rely on this one weird trick—a dubious loophole in state law—to get a half measure when you might get everything you’ve ever dreamed of in a year?

“I don’t know what will end up passing,” he wrote, “so it’s hard to know how TFER’s program might integrate with any proposed new law. So TFER is simply not focusing on it unless and until such law becomes a reality.”