What you’ll want to find out about Texas Education Freedom Accounts, the inspiration of the state’s new college selection legislation

SAN ANTONIO – Texas will be part of greater than a dozen different states in launching a college selection program when the application portal opens on Feb 4.

The program known as Texas Education Freedom Accounts. TEFA will present households with a possibility to use for monetary help to homeschool their college students, ship them to non-public college or present their baby with customized tutoring.

Families just like the Aragon household in San Antonio are excited for the TEFA program as a result of it offers them hope that they’ll have the ability to ship each of their kids to a tuition-based college.

Currently, Vanessa and Sam Aragon’s 3-year-old, autistic son, Appa, attends the Rise School in San Antonio. The Rise School helps college students with disabilities get a head begin in class each academically and by educating life abilities.

“Speech therapy, music therapy, social media therapy, occupational therapy,” Sam Aragon listed the entry to alternatives his son will get via the Rise School.

Through these applications, Sam and Vanessa stated they’ve seen essentially the most enchancment of their son, Appa.

“When he started at two years old to know … his vocabulary is crazy,” Vanessa Aragon stated. “He was not a very social person.”

The Aragon household has a youthful baby they need to enroll in The Rise School, however they gained’t have the ability to make ends meet with out monetary help.

Their household receives monetary support from the varsity however enrolling a second baby will add 1000’s of {dollars} in a invoice they could not have the ability to foot with out the TEFA program.

“[TEFA] would help ensure that we can put both of them through The Rise School so that they can both learn the same things and grow in similar ways,” Vanessa Aragon stated.

What are Texas Education Freedom Accounts?

Texas Education Freedom Accounts will present households a possibility to make use of state taxpayer {dollars} to fund their pupil’s non-public or home-schooled schooling.

The TEFA portal will settle for functions between Feb. 4 and March 17. The utility would require households to offer details about their monetary standing and the place they plan to enroll their college students for the upcoming college 12 months.

The TEFA program pay scale can be:

• Families intending on sending their pupil(s) to non-public college can obtain as much as $10,474 per pupil per 12 months.

• Families with college students with disabilities who’ve an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) via their native college district can obtain as much as $30,000 per pupil per 12 months.

• Families who plan on homeschooling their college students can obtain as much as $2,000 per pupil per 12 months.

Parents can inform the state via their utility if their baby has a incapacity. Students with disabilities who come from low-income households would be the highest precedence to obtain funding.

Families making use of for his or her college students with disabilities will want an Individualized Education Program (IEP) to qualify for the quantity offered for college students with disabilities.

The IEP requires an evaluation that households should schedule with their native college district, even when the scholar has by no means attended that district.

“There are a lot of important verifications that are required to make sure that taxpayer funding is used appropriately,” Travis Pillow stated.

Newly-hired Travis Pillow serves because the TEFA spokesperson to assist launch this system and host occasions to provide dad and mom a greater image of what this system is and the way to be part of it.

Pillow beforehand labored in Florida because the director of thought management at Step Up for Students, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping households with entry to non-public and out-of-district colleges.

“One of the things that we’ve seen is that when parents have the power to choose the best possible education for their child, everyone wins,” Pillow stated. “In states where these programs have scaled up, public school performance has actually improved as the programs have scale up.”

How to use for, obtain Texas Education Freedom Accounts

The portal to use for Texas Education Freedom Accounts opens on Feb 4, and closes March 17.

Families can apply at anytime in the course of the utility interval, as functions are usually not reviewed on a rolling foundation and as an alternative seen as soon as the portal closes.

Families can download a checklist of what’s wanted to make the appliance course of as easy as doable.

“Families will get up to about 25 percent of their total funding on July 1 so that they can get ready for the school year, pay their initial costs, acquire curriculum, pay their tuition and fees at their school,” Travis Pillow stated.

Pillow stated households can count on their subsequent installment in October after the state can confirm which college students are nonetheless enrolled within the college chosen on their utility.

The objective of offering the funds in installments is to forestall fraud, so households are usually not pulling their college students out of personal college and pocketing any remaining funds.

“Our goal is to protect taxpayer dollars while making the process and participating in the program as simple and user-friendly as possible for the family,” Pillow stated.

He stated the state will verify on enrollment standing once more in February after which launch the ultimate funding installment to households within the spring. The whole pot of cash set to be distributed is one billion {dollars}.

“One billion dollars is going to be enough to allow us to launch the largest first-year school choice program in the nation’s history,” Pillow stated.

Arizona, a state that prides itself on being the primary within the nation to have a common college selection program, now has 100,000 college students enrolled in its schooling financial savings program.

“There are 20 other states across the nation with similar programs like this,” Pillow stated. “We have the opportunity now to learn the best of what they’ve figured out, as well as to look at some of the cautionary tales of things that haven’t gone so well that we can improve.”

KSAT visits recipients of first common college selection program

Arizona was the primary state to launch a program permitting households to make use of taxpayer {dollars} towards their college students’ non-public or homeschool schooling.

The program known as the Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Program and offers households with an average of $7,500 per student.

Kayla Parra, an Arizona mom of two, has two college students with disabilities who use ESA’s.

“For my son, I take the money he gets, and I use it to pay for a private kinder program for him that is specifically for children on the autism spectrum,” Parra stated. “For my daughter, that is being home education. So we use hers to pay for curriculum, to pay a reading specialist and math specialist to come into the home and meet her where she’s most comfortable.”

Parra stated with out ESAs, she wouldn’t have the ability to ship her son to the non-public college he’s attending.

She stated she additionally wouldn’t have been in a position to transfer her daughter out of public college and right into a homeschool studying possibility with tutors due to the monetary pressure.

“I’m a single mom, I don’t got that kind of money,” Parra stated. “For the half-day kinder program my son is in, it is over $16,000 a year in tuition.”

The ESA cash Parra receives for her kids to get an schooling that works for them not solely pays for personal college and tutors, but additionally academic video games that assist her college students study at house. She has additionally been in a position to offset the prices of remedy.

“Even if insurance doesn’t pay for all of their therapies because they’re SpEd (special education), I can use ESA also to help cover any leftover balance on their therapies as well.”

Parra stated she is grateful for this system, and each of her kids stated they take pleasure in their education now greater than they did previous to switching to non-public college and at-home education.

Issues with Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts

Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts profit 100,000 kids throughout the state, however it’s attending to the purpose the place serving that many college students has run into points.

One fraud scheme landed a married couple pleading responsible in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Ashley Meredith Hewitt, also called Ashley Hopkins, and her husband, Johnny Lee Bowers, have been indicted on a number of felony costs of conspiracy.

An indictment for the two writes that they “would engage in conduct constituting … fraud schemes and artifices, forgery, money laundering and aggravated taking identity of another person or entity.”

According to the indictment, the 2 solid a number of start certificates, utilized for ESA’s beneath their names and created aliases for the appliance.

The indictment says the 2 obtained $110,258.28 and used the cash on themselves whereas residing in Colorado after which moved to Utah.

Hewitt and Bowers each pleaded guilty to the charges. Bowers was sentenced to jail till October 2027.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne instructed KSAT that safeguards have been carried out to forestall this from occurring once more.

“There was a problem in the past, and it won’t be a problem in the future,” Horne stated. “We will eventually have an automated system to identify things that aren’t valid educational, and so we can stop it before payment is made.”

Arizona has also had an issue with inappropriate purchases being made using ESA funds.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes sent a letter to Horne in August 2025 threatening to investigate inappropriate purchases.

The letter said ESA holders have used their accounts to illegally purchase diamond rings, lingerie, above-ground pools and more.

“As soon as we discover something like that, we suspend their account so they can’t do anything until it’s all resolved,” Horne stated about households inappropriately utilizing ESA funds. “We demand the money back. If they pay the money back, they’re reinstated.”

However, if the money is not paid back, Horne said the case is sent to the Attorney General or the County Attorney.

Horne said the state has received $1.2 million back after inappropriate uses of funds were found. The state has also hit a milestone of 100,000 students enrolled in an Empowerment Scholarship Account.

Horne said the reason they have had these issues slip through the cracks is because of staffing.

He said the ESA department has not had an increase in staffing since the program was in its early stages. Considering the lack of staffing, he said the audit structure that works is auditing every purchase over $2,000.

“Under $2,000, we pay it first, and we do what’s called risk-based auditing later,” Horne said. “Risk-based audit is expressly authorized by the legislature … but some people are taking advantage, and they buy things that are inappropriate, and we pay if it’s under $2,000, and then we audit later, and we get the money back.”

Arizona uses ClassWallet, a vendor that pays for parent’s educational purchases if they have an ESA.

“ClassWallet is developing for us an automated system where eventually we will be able to audit everything,” Horne said, “but it’s not ready yet.”

Why do families choose private schools?

Arizona has private schools all across the state that tend to various student and familial needs. This includes private schools that cater to students with disabilities and private schools offering faith-based education.

Pardes Jewish Day School in Phoenix is one of the many private schools in Arizona that accepts Empowerment Scholarship Accounts.

“It has done wonders for our family,” Simon Kreisberger said.

Kreisberger’s three children all went to Pardes Jewish Day School, and their family had access to Empowerment Scholarship Accounts.

“It literally afforded us the opportunity to give our kids that secular and Judaic education that we really strive for,” Kreisberger said, “but originally couldn’t give our kid and then really that ESA program helped bridge that gap.”

The school offers a private K-8 education for families looking for a Judaic-faith-centered education.

Carrie Lehrman’s children also attended Pardes Jewish Day School. Her oldest daughter has since moved into a different school as she graduated from the K-8 day school.

“She’s had such a good span of teachers and opportunities,” Lehrman said. “She’s now in high school, a junior in high school, and she’s on track to go to some absolutely amazing universities.”

Lehrman’s son still attends the school while using the ESA program.

KSAT’s Zaria Oates spent a day at Pardes Jewish Day School, going to classes with some of the students.

The students learn in typical and atypical settings, sitting through regular math classes while also having moments where the students teach each other the math lesson.

Similarly, the art class offered an option for students to move around and learn from each other during the class.

“ESA has become a game changer and is making it where families who could never even imagine this type of education, it’s a reality for them now, and their kids can go,” Lehrman said.

What about public schools?

Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne, said they have seen a decline in public school enrollment since making their Empowerment Scholarship Accounts universal.

Each time the school choice conversation was addressed in Texas, prior to the bill passing in the state legislature, opponents of the bill mentioned the price that public schools would have to pay if they began losing students who moved to private schools.

Horne said his state has experienced that, but that the funding offsets itself.

“Although they lose the income that comes with the students, they also lose the cost of educating the student,“ Horne said. ”And what really matters is not total dollars, but dollars per pupil.”

According to the Arizona Department of Education, “an ESA consists of 90% of the state funding that would have otherwise been allocated to the school district or charter school for the qualified student.”

Families are receiving a portion of what a public school would have received from the state if that student were enrolled in the public school.

”Now that there’s competition, I think it creates a good incentive for the public schools to do better,” Horne stated.

When requested if the state has seen a drop in academic worth, Horne stated the competitors helps, however the instructor scarcity can also be a shortfall for the state to have the ability to retain college students and supply them with the dear schooling they attend college to obtain.

“We have a very drastic teachers shortage, and I think the answer to that is to increase their salaries,” Horne stated.

He additionally stated he’s pushing for a rise in instructor salaries within the upcoming Arizona legislative session.

Travis Pillow, with the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, stated one thing related concerning the elevated competitors for public colleges now that the state can have college selection.

“The more competition there is for public schools, the more public schools rise to the occasion and step up their game,” Pillow stated.

What applications settle for Texas Education Freedom Accounts?

The Texas Education Freedom Accounts web site has a map that reveals colleges accepting TEFA. More colleges may be added as repeatedly as day by day.

Travis Pillow addressed a query particularly pertaining to some colleges not being authorised to simply accept Texas Education Freedom Accounts.

Pillow cited “compliance with state law” and “affiliations with terrorist groups” as causes a college with a specific religious-based schooling could possibly be prevented from accepting TEFA.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton dominated that the Comptroller’s workplace can block certain schools and vendors from receiving TEFA funds if they’re tied to terrorists or overseas adversaries.

The transcription of query and reply between KSAT Reporter Zaria Oates and TEFA Spokesperson Travis Pillow is beneath.

Zaria: “Is there a limit to which private schools are considered accredited? There are obviously always going to be rumors online.

“But there are rumors circulating online that, depending on religion, will depend on how they’re accredited and that has already happened. But that’s a rumor. Can you talk about that?”

Travis: “We are required to ensure that every participating school follows all the applicable laws.

“In addition to that, the Comptroller has sought guidance from the attorney general regarding the authority of the Comptroller’s office to ensure all schools that are participating in this program comply with the law and there aren’t any affiliations with terrorist groups or foreign adversaries or anything of that nature.

“Those are the verifications that we are performing. And if a school is barred from this program, it would be based on their compliance with state law.”

ZARIA: “Currently, are there any schools in the state of Texas that are barred from being accredited with this program?”

TRAVIS: “So the decision about whether a school has an appropriate accreditation is between the school and their accreditation agency, and those accreditation agencies are vetted and approved by the Texas Education Agency.”

Families can find colleges which are already authorised to simply accept Texas Education Freedom Accounts on this TEFA finder website via the TEFA homepage.

Assistance making use of for Texas Education Freedom Accounts

If you want help making use of for TEFA, there are alternatives targeted on offering free help to households making use of to this system.

The system TEFA is utilizing for the appliance portal is meant to be user-friendly so households can apply at-home.

However, it is very important have as a lot data as doable so the appliance course of may be accomplished.

“The one thing the system won’t find automatically is tax returns,” Inga Cotton with School Discovery Network stated. “So families should definitely be prepared with their most recent federal tax return so they can prove income, because that’s another factor that determines their priority.”

School Discovery Network is an independent organization assisting families who plan on applying for Texas Education Freedom Accounts.

“Families need to not just apply for the TEFA, but they also need to apply to the private schools that they’re interested in,” Cotton stated.

Families who have students with disabilities should also contact the local school district to ensure any child with a disability has an IEP on-record with that local school district.

There may also be Texas Education Freedom Accounts informational classes that may be found here.