Texas Standard

The passage of Senate Bill 2 last year was a victory for Gov. Greg Abbott, who pushed hard for the program in 2023 but could not get it across the finish line. The money for these education savings accounts was made available to families starting this fall. But analysis from the Dallas Morning News found that over 20,000 students who were initially awarded vouchers returned the money without using it. Jessica Ma, who covers education for the Morning News, said the money is overseen by the Comptroller’s Office and the program numbers are still in flux.

It isn’t immediately clear why students might not accept their education savings account funds, Ma said. However, the data showed that over two-thirds of the students who returned the money were previously enrolled in public school — whereas some vouchers were given to students already enrolled in private schools. “This was interesting because proponents and politicians really promised that these school vouchers would help families leave public schools. And now critics sort of say this recent data casts doubt on that premise,” Ma said. “The state awarded students based on this priority structure. So, students with disabilities were first in line to get those funds. There were about 29,000 students in this tier who were deemed eligible, but our data shows that 7,000 of them opted out. So that’s nearly a quarter of eligible applicants in the first tier.” These numbers could point to the challenges families discovered when trying to use the funding for private education, Ma said…