They Don't Want School Choice

Texas once again provides proof that many school choice advocates do not actually want school choice at all.

A Muslim parent has taken the state to court in order to sue for access to Islamic private schools via taxpayer-funded vouchers. 

But wait, you say-- doesn't Texas have (after years of battling and political shenanigans) a taxpayer-funded school voucher program? Aren't we seeing stories about how gazillions of parents are signing up for it?

Yes, and yes. But in Texas, as in many states, the people who have fought so very hard for school choice don't actually want school choice. 

As I posted last December, the acting comptroller threw a wrench in the works before it even got in gear. Kelly Hancock was in the chemicals business when he decided to step up his political career from school board member to House of Representatives in 2006. After three terms in the House, he moved up to the Senate. His undistinguished career included his award from Texas Monthly for being one of the worst legislators in Texas in 2017. The 2021 gerrymander still gave him a safer district. Then in June 2025, he resigned the Senate so he could be appointed the acting Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts by Governor Greg Abbott. (He's planning to run for the office for realsies next year.)

Hancock entered the Acting Comptroller gig by asking if maybe he could just exclude some schools from the voucher program. Hancock argued that the accreditation company Cognia (in business since 1895) had hosted some events organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Governor Greg Abbott last November designated CAIR a "foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organization," because Islamophobia is a big selling point for Texas Republicans. The feds have not made any such charge, but Governor Ron DeSantis got Florida on that same bandwagon. Attorney General Paxton told Hancock to go ahead and shut off those private schools from the taxpayer-funded vouchers.

So because some schools know a group that knows a group that the governor says (without evidence) is tied to other bad guys, hundreds of schools have been locked out of the Texas voucher program. The schools include schools that serve Christian students and students with special needs, and those that serve Muslim students. 

So now a father has to sue the state to have access to the school choice program. “The exclusion is not based on individualized findings of unlawful conduct by any specific school, but rather on categorical presumptions that Islamic schools are suspect and potentially linked to terrorism by virtue of their religious identity and community associations,” the lawsuit states.

CAIR issued a statement about the events it hosts, “Know Your Rights” events designed to inform students about state and federal civil rights and protections.

“Hosting civil rights education for students is lawful. So is teaching students about their rights under the U.S. and Texas Constitutions,” a spokesperson with CAIR Texas said. “Any attempt to penalize schools for learning about their civil rights from an organization Greg Abbott happens to dislike would raise serious First Amendment concerns.”

It sure looks like Texas would like to provide taxpayer dollars only to certain schools that are connected to certain religions. For the umpteenth time, we get school choice advocates who only support choice when it involves families making choices of which they approve, which inevitably involves the State deciding which religions are legitimate, and that ought to alarm people on all sides of religious debates.

This father should win his suit, and I'll be interested to see what the "pro-choice" leaders of Texas do next.