{"id":171038,"date":"2026-02-19T07:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/171038\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T07:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T07:54:11","slug":"texas-expands-school-choice-professors-weigh-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/171038\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas expands school choice, professors weigh impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mia Martinez | Reporter<\/p>\n

A new school voucher program was implemented in Texas, and educators at Baylor said the long-term effects on educational equity and public school funding are uncertain. <\/p>\n

The private school voucher program<\/a> allows eligible families to be able to use state funds toward either private school tuition or homeschooling expenses, expanding school choice across the state. Applications<\/a> are open now and will close March 17.<\/p>\n

While some supporters argue the policy allows for more educational choice access, critics question how redirecting public funds for these private school vouchers will affect public school systems.<\/p>\n

Dr. Trena Wilkerson, chair of curriculum and instruction in the Moody School of Education, said the program\u2019s intent is centered on opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts intent is to give more students opportunity for choice,\u201d Wilkerson said. \u201cBeing able to attend private schools or homeschool or other options that they may have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilkerson also said the private school voucher can help students where alternative educational settings are a better fit.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some students, private school or homeschooling is the best option,\u201d Wilkerson said. \u201cIt gives more students and more families an option.\u201d<\/p>\n

As more public students shift into private or homeschool opportunities, public schools that depend on funds based on student enrollment<\/a> might suffer from less attendance and changes in district budgets.<\/p>\n

\u201cDistricts are funded in part, in major part, by the students that attend,\u201d Wilkerson said. \u201cThis would need to be looked at very carefully by school districts, but it does impact potentially public schools because funding is based on student attendance and who is enrolled in the school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Angela Urick, associate professor in the Moody School of Education, highlighted the uncertainties and pressures public schools face under the state accountability systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic schools, because of how regulated they are and because of a strenuous accountability system, there\u2019s always this oversight pressure if mistakes are made or if they don\u2019t meet certain performance goals,\u201d Urick said. \u201cThere\u2019s already this kind of high-pressure, high-efficiency environment, which leads to a lot of burnout of principals and teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Urick said that if these resources are removed from public schooling, it could intensify their challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take resources away from that and let\u2019s say, reduce pay or reduce professional development or other sorts of supports, then a system that\u2019s already under high pressure, doing more with less \u2014 it just adds another stress to an already pressed system,\u201d Urick said.<\/p>\n

Urick also emphasized the importance of evaluating how the process unfolds, not just with students within K-12, but also with college students who will become teachers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can change policy, but the important part is to kind of watch how it\u2019s implemented and evaluate it,\u201d Urick said. \u201cIt\u2019ll be interesting to see if any of the students going to private schools versus the students going to public schools, if any of those numbers actually shift due to the vouchers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Urick also noted that the Texas private school vouchers were the result of a political debate<\/a> between teachers and the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe voucher system was a long and hard-fought fight.\u201d Urick said. \u201cThere\u2019s just a whole community of people that invested a lot of their time in the school voucher issue and fought pretty hard against it, so just recognizing that work that the educators really had a voice to support public schools, and so I think that when and how the vouchers passed was disappointing for many educators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both professors agreed on finding the best fit for students and families, telling families to research their options.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be important for families to really visit and know the schools that they are trying to select for their student.\u201d Wilkerson said \u201cIf it\u2019s a private school, they need to visit that school, make sure that that is the best fit for their child, make sure that it has the high-quality education that they\u2019re looking for, and the various options.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Mia Martinez | Reporter A new school voucher program was implemented in Texas, and educators at Baylor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[440,2634,22846,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-171038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-event","tag-icon","tag-link","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}