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In Texas, a Years-Long ESA Push Nears the Finish Line
After ousting more than a dozen Republican opponents of private school choice, Gov. Greg Abbott could score a national win.
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After years of thwarted attempts, Texas Republicans are finally poised to direct public funding toward private schools.
Within the first few weeks of the 2025 legislative session, the state Senate passed a bill that would provide education savings accounts (ESAs) worth up to $11,500 to families for each of their children’s schooling expenses, including private tuition. The more moderate House of Representatives, where prior efforts to establish voucher-style programs have run aground, appears to be headed in a similar direction, with a majority of its members co-sponsoring similar legislation.
If successful, the state GOP will have accomplished one of its most ambitious and long-held goals: the establishment of a school choice system that dramatically expands educational options, transforming the K–12 ecosystem of America’s second-largest state and putting it once again at the forefront of conservative policy. To reach this point, Gov. Greg Abbott has had to put down significant resistance within his own party, expending both political and financial capital to defeat Republicans who stood in his way.
Yet, while majorities in both chambers are converging on the same idea, enough differences separate their approaches to cloud the prospects of a final deal. The underlying ambiguity, as well as the symbolic importance of Texas as the largest Republican-controlled state, have been highlighted in recent weeks by household names like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz prodding officeholders to take action. With the full House opening the debate on their bill on Tuesday, the strength of the choice coalition will be put to a test that most believe they will ultimately pass.
Katherine Munal, a former legislative staffer for Texas Republicans who now serves as the policy director of the advocacy group EdChoice, said she sees the enactment of ESAs as a “done deal” that will eventually emerge from negotiations between the House and Senate. Just as inevitably, she predicted, the initial $1 billion investment in the policy would “continue to grow.”
“I see this as a foothold for how Texas will look at education in the future,” Munal said. “This education savings account program will be a pillar of education conversations forever.”
That view was echoed by Notre Dame sociologist Mark Berends, who has studied the implementation of various forms of school choice, including ESAs and charter schools. Commenting on the design of both Texas proposals — which make the accounts universally available, rather than reserving them only for low-income families or those grappling with severe learning challenges — he said they were meant to attract a durable political constituency.
“If you have means-tested voucher or scholarship programs, they remain fragile,” Berends said. “Whereas proponents look at universal ESAs almost like Social Security: Once it gets passed, it will not be overturned.”
But a victory in the conservative mecca would validate Republicans’ political strategy as much as the policy itself. Over the past half-decade, a sequence of red-state governors have worked to expand private school choice; a muscular donor group, led by top GOP fundraisers like former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and TikTok investor Jeff Yass, has pursued the same ends, often by targeting uncooperative Republican lawmakers with primary challengers. They have succeeded in rewriting the conservative education agenda, with erstwhile priorities like charter schools and school accountability virtually disappearing from view.
The difficulty of bringing the same playbook in Texas has “felt like a black eye” to the national party, said Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project, a polling and public affairs organization based at the University of Texas. But he added that a breakthrough there would be viewed as a proof of concept, particularly as the program grows.
“When you look at the other states that have big aspirations around school choice, none of them will be doing it on the scale of Texas, and none will spend the money that Texas will to create a private market in education,” Blank said. “There is a sense that if you can make it work in Texas, it should be workable anywhere.”
‘Primarying out legislators’
Significant effort, and no shortage of funds, have been dedicated toward making things work in Texas.
The latest push in Austin was set in motion last spring, when Abbott succeeded in unseating 13 recalcitrant ESA foes in Republican primaries. Frustrated by a string of legislative failures in 2023 — including a hastily-convened special session and unheeded threats to veto bills that didn’t include voucher proposals — the three-term governor campaigned hard against a mostly rural contingent of Republican House members who refused to take up the cause.
Their resistance was motivated by concern over the financial disruptions that ESAs would likely inflict on small communities, where school districts are traditionally the largest employer and center of civic life. Partnering with virtually all Democratic members, the group helped torpedo school choice bills going back to the tenure of Abbott’s predecessor as governor.
It makes complete sense that t he biggest state, and the most expensive to play in, will be the last one to fall.
Josh Cowen, Michigan State University
To dislodge them, Abbott tapped the resources of both local oil barons and national Republican mega-donors. Yass, one of the richest school choice advocates in the country, contributed $10 million between 2023 and 2024, while DeVos chipped in another $1 million. By the middle of last year, Abbott — who isn’t up for reelection until 2026 — had over $50 million in his campaign account.
Josh Cowen, a professor of education at Michigan State University and opponent of school vouchers, said the spending binge was simply an expansion of the choice movement’s strategy in states like Iowa and Arkansas. There, dozens of Republican voucher opponents were either cowed or defeated within a campaign cycle or two. But in Texas, home to over 1,000 school districts and multiple large media markets, the cost and complexity of driving out dissidents took longer.
“Their entire strategy is based upon primarying out legislators,” said Cowen, who recently published a highly critical book on the spread of ESAs last year. “So it makes complete sense — setting aside stuff like local culture, politics, the state constitution — that the biggest state, and the most expensive to play in, will be the last one to fall.”
Somewhat paradoxically, the campaign didn’t predominantly hinge on the issue of school choice. A poll of Republican voters conducted before the primary elections showed that most listed immigration, the economy, and abortion as more salient than the fate of education, and even those who cited schools were unlikely to specifically mention choice.
Even now, with legislators ready to craft a final law creating an ESA system, the national GOP is still applying pressure. President Trump and advisor Elon Musk have taken to social media to insist that lawmakers finish the job. Blank noted that grassroots resistance to the policy still runs high even following last year’s ousters, with the author of the House bill lustily booed from the stage at an East Texas PTA meeting in late February.
“The only way to change that is to bring in Donald Trump, bring in Elon Musk, and have Ted Cruz hit this issue over and over again,” he said. “It’s a reflection that, although the debate is nearly won, it still needs more thumbs on the scale.”
‘The stakes couldn’t be higher’
State Rep. James Talarico agreed that the extent of pressure from both campaign funders and the Oval Office indicated that the ESA legislation’s passage is not assured.
A Democrat from an Austin-based district, he has become one of the state’s loudest voices against private school choice, labeling the proposals a “voucher scam” and exchanging public barbs with Abbott. In an interview, he described the legislation’s likelihood of passage as a 50-50 proposition, calling his constituents’ opposition “relentless” and noting that even a few defections could cause negotiations with the Senate to break down.
“The stakes couldn’t be higher, and I think that’s the reason why some of the wealthiest donors in the country have put so much money behind this,” he said.
Still, the widespread perception is that Abbott’s brass ring now lies within his grasp. While the House has moved to consider a K–12 funding increase before turning to the matter of choice — widely considered a sweetener to bring along those still anxious about its impact on district finances — it has also seen 75 co-sponsors sign on to the ESA legislation out of 150 total members.
The two chambers differ somewhat in their visions for the policy. The Senate legislation offers a set figure of $10,000 for each student, with an additional $1,500 provided for those with disabilities, but House Republicans propose to fund 85 percent of state and local spending per pupil (roughly $10,900) and as much as $30,000 for children with disabilities. While making all 6.4 million Texas students eligible to receive ESAs, both bills would also target various student groups — including those from relatively lower-earning families, and those who previously attended district public schools — at different levels of priority.
This education savings account program will be a pillar of education conversations forever.
Katherine Munal, EdChoice
Given the prevailing likelihood that some compromise measure prevails, EdChoice’s Munal foresees a radical shift in how the state provides education, with the likely emergence of new vendors to offer increasingly specialized services to families seeking help with math learning, treatment of dyslexia, or English as a second language.
“We are really excited about opening that education market to allow for better outcomes and better products,” she said. “We’ll have a bigger market, ready to compete and create better products for kids.”
That market-inflected language contrasts somewhat with the way that education reform has historically been pursued in Texas. Wealthy philanthropists and donors tried to set up pilot voucher systems as early as the 1980s, often winning the support of Republican officials along the way. But those ventures were pursued alongside simultaneous moves to drive public school improvement, most famously by Gov. George W. Bush, whose heavy emphasis on academic accountability was later replicated in the No Child Left Behind Act.
Neither the House or Senate legislation would require schools serving ESA recipients to participate in Texas’s mandated STAAR exams, and Munal separately lamented the “years of debate wasted on testing and accountability.” Yet national assessment data indicate that the state ranks among the best in the nation in both math and reading, particularly when adjusting for student demographics.
Cowen said he expected conservatives to turn their eyes to Washington in the coming months, arguing that a triumph in Texas would represent a “high-water mark” for the red-state strategy of the last half-decade. Some remaining Republican legislatures are considering their own such bills, but they would add a relatively small number of new participating families. By comparison, a national tax-credit scholarship program, perhaps passed through Congress in a reconciliation bill, would open a totally new chapter in the history of school choice.
“They’re realizing that they’re running out of real estate, and they need to find a way to keep growing,” he said. “Texas is kind of it. Once the state is done, whichever way it goes, they don’t have many places left to push.”
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After years of thwarted attempts, Texas Republicans are finally poised to direct public funding toward private schools.
Within the first few weeks of the 2025 legislative session, the state Senate passed a bill that would provide education savings accounts (ESAs) worth up to $11,500 to families for each of their children’s schooling expenses, including private tuition. The more moderate House of Representatives, where prior efforts to establish voucher-style programs have run aground, appears to be headed in a similar direction, with a majority of its members co-sponsoring similar legislation.
If successful, the state GOP will have accomplished one of its most ambitious and long-held goals: the establishment of a school choice system that dramatically expands educational options, transforming the K–12 ecosystem of America’s second-largest state and putting it once again at the forefront of conservative policy. To reach this point, Gov. Greg Abbott has had to put down significant resistance within his own party, expending both political and financial capital to defeat Republicans who stood in his way.
Yet, while majorities in both chambers are converging on the same idea, enough differences separate their approaches to cloud the prospects of a final deal. The underlying ambiguity, as well as the symbolic importance of Texas as the largest Republican-controlled state, have been highlighted in recent weeks by household names like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz prodding officeholders to take action. With the full House opening the debate on their bill on Tuesday, the strength of the choice coalition will be put to a test that most believe they will ultimately pass.
Katherine Munal, a former legislative staffer for Texas Republicans who now serves as the policy director of the advocacy group EdChoice, said she sees the enactment of ESAs as a “done deal” that will eventually emerge from negotiations between the House and Senate. Just as inevitably, she predicted, the initial $1 billion investment in the policy would “continue to grow.”
“I see this as a foothold for how Texas will look at education in the future,” Munal said. “This education savings account program will be a pillar of education conversations forever.”
That view was echoed by Notre Dame sociologist Mark Berends, who has studied the implementation of various forms of school choice, including ESAs and charter schools. Commenting on the design of both Texas proposals — which make the accounts universally available, rather than reserving them only for low-income families or those grappling with severe learning challenges — he said they were meant to attract a durable political constituency.
“If you have means-tested voucher or scholarship programs, they remain fragile,” Berends said. “Whereas proponents look at universal ESAs almost like Social Security: Once it gets passed, it will not be overturned.”
But a victory in the conservative mecca would validate Republicans’ political strategy as much as the policy itself. Over the past half-decade, a sequence of red-state governors have worked to expand private school choice; a muscular donor group, led by top GOP fundraisers like former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and TikTok investor Jeff Yass, has pursued the same ends, often by targeting uncooperative Republican lawmakers with primary challengers. They have succeeded in rewriting the conservative education agenda, with erstwhile priorities like charter schools and school accountability virtually disappearing from view.
The difficulty of bringing the same playbook in Texas has “felt like a black eye” to the national party, said Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project, a polling and public affairs organization based at the University of Texas. But he added that a breakthrough there would be viewed as a proof of concept, particularly as the program grows.
“When you look at the other states that have big aspirations around school choice, none of them will be doing it on the scale of Texas, and none will spend the money that Texas will to create a private market in education,” Blank said. “There is a sense that if you can make it work in Texas, it should be workable anywhere.”
‘Primarying out legislators’
Significant effort, and no shortage of funds, have been dedicated toward making things work in Texas.
The latest push in Austin was set in motion last spring, when Abbott succeeded in unseating 13 recalcitrant ESA foes in Republican primaries. Frustrated by a string of legislative failures in 2023 — including a hastily-convened special session and unheeded threats to veto bills that didn’t include voucher proposals — the three-term governor campaigned hard against a mostly rural contingent of Republican House members who refused to take up the cause.
Their resistance was motivated by concern over the financial disruptions that ESAs would likely inflict on small communities, where school districts are traditionally the largest employer and center of civic life. Partnering with virtually all Democratic members, the group helped torpedo school choice bills going back to the tenure of Abbott’s predecessor as governor.
It makes complete sense that the biggest state, and the most expensive to play in, will be the last one to fall.
Josh Cowen, Michigan State University
To dislodge them, Abbott tapped the resources of both local oil barons and national Republican mega-donors. Yass, one of the richest school choice advocates in the country, contributed $10 million between 2023 and 2024, while DeVos chipped in another $1 million. By the middle of last year, Abbott — who isn’t up for reelection until 2026 — had over $50 million in his campaign account.
Josh Cowen, a professor of education at Michigan State University and opponent of school vouchers, said the spending binge was simply an expansion of the choice movement’s strategy in states like Iowa and Arkansas. There, dozens of Republican voucher opponents were either cowed or defeated within a campaign cycle or two. But in Texas, home to over 1,000 school districts and multiple large media markets, the cost and complexity of driving out dissidents took longer.
“Their entire strategy is based upon primarying out legislators,” said Cowen, who recently published a highly critical book on the spread of ESAs last year. “So it makes complete sense — setting aside stuff like local culture, politics, the state constitution — that the biggest state, and the most expensive to play in, will be the last one to fall.”
Somewhat paradoxically, the campaign didn’t predominantly hinge on the issue of school choice. A poll of Republican voters conducted before the primary elections showed that most listed immigration, the economy, and abortion as more salient than the fate of education, and even those who cited schools were unlikely to specifically mention choice.
Even now, with legislators ready to craft a final law creating an ESA system, the national GOP is still applying pressure. President Trump and advisor Elon Musk have taken to social media to insist that lawmakers finish the job. Blank noted that grassroots resistance to the policy still runs high even following last year’s ousters, with the author of the House bill lustily booed from the stage at an East Texas PTA meeting in late February.
“The only way to change that is to bring in Donald Trump, bring in Elon Musk, and have Ted Cruz hit this issue over and over again,” he said. “It’s a reflection that, although the debate is nearly won, it still needs more thumbs on the scale.”
‘The stakes couldn’t be higher’
State Rep. James Talarico agreed that the extent of pressure from both campaign funders and the Oval Office indicated that the ESA legislation’s passage is not assured.
A Democrat from an Austin-based district, he has become one of the state’s loudest voices against private school choice, labeling the proposals a “voucher scam” and exchanging public barbs with Abbott. In an interview, he described the legislation’s likelihood of passage as a 50-50 proposition, calling his constituents’ opposition “relentless” and noting that even a few defections could cause negotiations with the Senate to break down.
“The stakes couldn’t be higher, and I think that’s the reason why some of the wealthiest donors in the country have put so much money behind this,” he said.
Still, the widespread perception is that Abbott’s brass ring now lies within his grasp. While the House has moved to consider a K–12 funding increase before turning to the matter of choice — widely considered a sweetener to bring along those still anxious about its impact on district finances — it has also seen 75 co-sponsors sign on to the ESA legislation out of 150 total members.
The two chambers differ somewhat in their visions for the policy. The Senate legislation offers a set figure of $10,000 for each student, with an additional $1,500 provided for those with disabilities, but House Republicans propose to fund 85 percent of state and local spending per pupil (roughly $10,900) and as much as $30,000 for children with disabilities. While making all 6.4 million Texas students eligible to receive ESAs, both bills would also target various student groups — including those from relatively lower-earning families, and those who previously attended district public schools — at different levels of priority.
This education savings account program will be a pillar of education conversations forever.
Katherine Munal, EdChoice
Given the prevailing likelihood that some compromise measure prevails, EdChoice’s Munal foresees a radical shift in how the state provides education, with the likely emergence of new vendors to offer increasingly specialized services to families seeking help with math learning, treatment of dyslexia, or English as a second language.
“We are really excited about opening that education market to allow for better outcomes and better products,” she said. “We’ll have a bigger market, ready to compete and create better products for kids.”
That market-inflected language contrasts somewhat with the way that education reform has historically been pursued in Texas. Wealthy philanthropists and donors tried to set up pilot voucher systems as early as the 1980s, often winning the support of Republican officials along the way. But those ventures were pursued alongside simultaneous moves to drive public school improvement, most famously by Gov. George W. Bush, whose heavy emphasis on academic accountability was later replicated in the No Child Left Behind Act.
Neither the House or Senate legislation would require schools serving ESA recipients to participate in Texas’s mandated STAAR exams, and Munal separately lamented the “years of debate wasted on testing and accountability.” Yet national assessment data indicate that the state ranks among the best in the nation in both math and reading, particularly when adjusting for student demographics.
Cowen said he expected conservatives to turn their eyes to Washington in the coming months, arguing that a triumph in Texas would represent a “high-water mark” for the red-state strategy of the last half-decade. Some remaining Republican legislatures are considering their own such bills, but they would add a relatively small number of new participating families. By comparison, a national tax-credit scholarship program, perhaps passed through Congress in a reconciliation bill, would open a totally new chapter in the history of school choice.
“They’re realizing that they’re running out of real estate, and they need to find a way to keep growing,” he said. “Texas is kind of it. Once the state is done, whichever way it goes, they don’t have many places left to push.”
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