Education Freedom Accounts in Houston

The facts

• Texas Education Freedom Accounts were created by SB 2 in 2025. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the law May 3, 2025. The first school year is 2026-27. [1]
• A private-school student gets $10,474 for 2026-27, set at 85% of the statewide average state and local funding per student. [2]
• A student with a disability can get up to $30,000 a year, with an IEP on file with TEA. A homeschooled student gets $2,000. [2]
• The Legislature set aside $1 billion for 2026-27, a separate appropriation outside the regular school funding formula. [2]
• The program is run for the Comptroller by Odyssey, a New York-based company, which handles applications and the family accounts. [3]
• Private-school awards are paid 25% on July 1, 2026, 25% on Oct. 1, 2026 and 50% on Feb. 1, 2027. Homeschool awards were paid in full July 1, 2026. [2]
• More than 274,000 families applied by the March 31, 2026 deadline, for roughly 90,000 first-year spots. [4]
• The Comptroller's Aug. 3, 2026 report found about 248,000 applicants eligible and about 122,000 selected; 85,344 had confirmed a private school or homeschool plan. 80% of participants are low-income and about 24% have a disability. [1]
• Houston ISD had more participants inside its boundaries than any district in Texas: 3,327. [1]
• In the Houston area, the most funded students live in Houston ISD, then Fort Bend, Cy-Fair, Conroe and Katy. [5]
• About 509 Houston-area private schools were approved to take the accounts as of Feb. 4, 2026. [6]
• As of Sept. 8, 2026, nearly 110,000 students had received money and more than 106,000 were on the waitlist. The Comptroller asked lawmakers for just over $2 billion for 2027-28 and 2028-29. [7]
• The accounts are not paid out of school district budgets. But Texas pays districts by enrollment and attendance, so a district loses state money for each student who leaves. [8]
• Alief ISD says 211 students left for the program, an estimated loss of about $1.7 million; the estimate comes from two groups that oppose the program. [8]
• A report by two groups that oppose the program estimates Houston ISD lost 1,207 students to it, and Texas schools about $300 million. [9]

The money: what each account pays and where students come from

• A private school account is $10,474 for 2026-27, set by TEA at 85% of statewide average per-student funding. Students with an IEP can get up to $30,000, based on the IEP; homeschool accounts are $2,000. [10]
• The program has $1 billion for its first year. [11]
• The Houston region (Education Service Center Region 4) has 17,915 participating students, the most of any of the state's 20 regions. Fort Bend ISD has 2,024. [12]
• More than 120,000 students are on the waitlist statewide. [13]

Students using an account, by the district they live in

Student counts are the program's own, by district of residence, as of July 29, 2026, as parents reported them. [12] The dollar column is H-Town Ledger's multiplication: students times the private school account amount. Students with disabilities can get more, homeschool accounts less, and the state doesn't publish dollars by district.

Houston-area schools that take the accounts

From the program's own school finder, read weekly. [14] The finder doesn't list tuition or open seats, and no official source publishes either by school; compare any school's tuition with the $10,474 account on the school's own site.

600 schools and providers.

The vote

How Harris County's legislators voted

SB 2 created Education Freedom Accounts, the state money families can use for private school or homeschool. HB 2 is the 2025 school funding and teacher pay bill. Votes are each member's recorded vote on final passage in their chamber, from the official House and Senate Journals.

Notes from the House Journal: Briscoe Cain said he was shown voting no on HB 2 but intended to vote yes. Gene Wu said his SB 2 vote failed to register and that he would have voted no. Penny Morales Shaw was absent, excused, for both votes. [16]