(The Center Square) – In one month, more than 160,000 students have applied to Texas’ new school choice program. The overwhelming majority are private school students.
The first lawsuit has also been filed claiming the program discriminates against Islamic private schools.
The Texas Comptroller’s Office is overseeing the Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) program. The legislature allocated $1 billion to provide roughly $10,000 Education Savings Account grants for roughly 100,000 students, prioritizing the disabled and low-income students, The Center Square reported. Funds may be used for private school tuition, homeschool expenses, tutoring, career and technical education programs, among other expenses.
From Feb. 4 through March 8, 163,362 applications were received. The overwhelming majority, 79%, were for private school students; 21% were for homeschool students.
The majority of applications were from households with a reported income of 200% below the federal poverty level and between 200% and 500% of the FPL, according to preliminary data released by the comptroller’s office.
The majority of applications, 60%, were for pre-K and kindergarten students, followed by elementary students.
“The data is preliminary and will change as more families apply,” the comptroller’s office said. “Not every family who applies will ultimately participate in the program” because more students applied than slots are available. Funding for eligible families will be prioritized according to economic need through a lottery system, as stipulated by law. The application process is open through March 17.
More than 2,200 schools have signed up to participate in TEFA; more are joining on a rolling basis, the comptroller’s office said.
As of March 4, less than 1% of Texas’ 5.5 million students enrolled in public schools and charter schools, 36,242, had applied to the program, according to data obtained through a public information request from the Texas Center for Voucher Transparency. The data “highlights what many communities already know: public schools remain the primary and trusted choice for Texas families,” the organization said.
“With approximately 5.5 million students enrolled in Texas public schools, that means less than 1% of public school families – about 0.7% – have applied,” the group said. The data suggests “that millions of Texas families remain committed to their neighborhood public schools, which continue to educate the vast majority of children across the state,” it says.
Meanwhile, the first Muslim parent has sued. In January, Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a legal opinion stating private schools with potential connections to foreign adversaries, including the Chinese Communist Party, were prohibited from participating.
The comptroller’s office had raised concerns about “potential TEFA applicants accredited through a TEPSAC-approved agency, Cognia,” which is based at an address that has “hosted publicly advertised events organized” by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which Gov. Greg Abbott designated as a foreign terrorist organization. CAIR has sued, rejecting the designation. Paxton said private schools connected to CAIR and the CCP, among other reasons, may legally be excluded from TEFA.
Houston attorney Mehdi Cherkauoi disagrees, arguing the prohibition violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of his children attending Houston Qur’an Academy Spring, a Cognia-accredited Islamic K–12 school in Harris County. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas Houston Division and names Paxton, Hancock and TEA Commissioner Mike Morath as defendants.
“Since TEFA’s inception, Defendants have systematically targeted Islamic schools for exclusion based on their religious identity, perceived ‘Islamic ties,’ and alleged connections to organizations Governor Abbott has designated as ‘foreign terrorist’ or ‘transnational criminal’ entities – even where those schools are fully accredited, satisfy all statutory eligibility criteria, and have no actual connection to terrorism or unlawful activity,” the lawsuit alleges.
HQA Spring “meets every neutral statutory criterion for TEFA participation but has been excluded from the state’s list of approved schools solely because of its Islamic religious identity and the Comptroller’s application of impermissible religious gerrymanders,” the lawsuit states.
It also alleges “not a single accredited Islamic private school has been approved to participate in TEFA – despite the approval of hundreds of other private schools statewide, including numerous Christian schools.”
The lawsuit requests the court to restore HQA Spring’s eligibility before the March 17 deadline and issue an emergency temporary restraining order to halt the prohibition.
