HOUSTON – Texas’ new school choice program has awarded funds to about 118,440 students, but as families begin using the funds, families raise questions about what the money can actually pay for and how the state-funded accounts interact with financial assistance offered by private schools.
Travis Pillow, a spokesperson for the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program, described the program as the largest first-year school choice program in the nation’s history.
The program, known as TEFA, currently prioritizes students in two groups: low- and middle-income students with a disability, and other low-income students. Pillow said the second group includes families earning less than $66,000 a year for a family of four…