Texas Happy To Send Taxpayer Money To Religious Schools, Just Not Yours.

Texas Happy To Send Taxpayer Money To Religious Schools, Just Not Yours. Texas’s new Education Freedom Account (TEFA) program, intended to fund private schools with taxpayer money, is facing significant hurdles. The state comptroller’s office is seeking to ban schools with alleged connections to China or the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), impacting hundreds of accredited institutions. Meanwhile, dozens of Christian schools with discriminatory policies against non-Christians and LGBTQ individuals are being approved, raising concerns about the program’s fairness and adherence to the First Amendment.

• Texas’s new school choice program, the Texas Education Freedom Account (TEFA), aims to fund private schools with taxpayer money.
• Many participating schools are Christian and some openly discriminate against non-Christians and LGBTQ individuals.
• The state comptroller’s office is attempting to ban some schools from the program due to alleged connections to the government of China or the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
• These alleged connections are described as tenuous, with CAIR suing the state over its ‘terrorist’ designation.
• Hundreds of schools, particularly those accredited by Cognia, have been blocked from the voucher program.
• The delays have caused a significant portion of schools accredited by Cognia to be excluded from the initial approval list.
• Legal opinions are being sought to clarify the grounds for banning schools, citing concerns about foreign adversaries and undermining state security interests.
• Civil rights groups argue that penalizing schools for hosting civil rights education raises First Amendment concerns.