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PODCAST: “Freedom to Learn” | How ESAs Finally Passed in Texas

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Madison Yandell, Gov. Greg Abbott’s education advisor, and Vanessa Tanner, chief of staff to the House education committee chairman, join Freedom to Learn to share the behind-the-scenes story

Last month, Governor Greg Abbott signed the nation’s largest day-one universal school choice program into law. Madison Yandell, the governor’s education advisor, and Vanessa Tanner, chief of staff to Texas House Public Education Committee Chairman Brad Buckley, joined the Freedom to Learn podcast to talk about how education savings accounts (ESAs) made it across the finish line – finally.

We go beyond the celebratory press releases and tweets to explore the legislative dynamics, stakeholder roles, and implementation challenges, offering a roadmap for other states.

Madison and Vanessa also explain the ESA program’s funding and how it prioritizes vulnerable children. Texas’ ESA program is the largest “day-one” education freedom program – it allocates $1 billion for approximately 70,000 to 90,000 students, with tiered eligibility based on a student’s household income or special needs status. The program, which will launch in 2026, empowers parents with flexible funding for tuition, tutoring, testing, and educational therapies.

An edited and condensed transcript of Ginny Gentles’ conversation with Madison and Vanessa is below. Listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube for the complete discussion.

What is your role in the Texas government?

Madison: I’m the Governor’s budget and policy advisor for K-12 education. I analyze, advise, and help with policy development for all things education here in the governor’s office.

Vanessa: My boss is the chairman of the House Public Education Committee. This was his second legislative session to chair the committee. My boss had served on the school board. His wife is an educator. He comes from a long line of educators. So he was very familiar, very passionate.

I became familiar with your work and your roles through the Education Reformers Academy. Can we touch briefly on what that is and what your involvement is?

Madison: It’s a policy fellowship. The organization brings together people from all angles of education policies — other governor’s advisors, other legislative staff like Vanessa, but then also school leaders and people from education nonprofits. We did a three month deep dive into the main topics in education policy from school choice to assessment and accountability policy to school finance.

Vanessa: I needed a deep dive on all sorts of education issues and we got that every week. We had really great informative policy sessions with people from across the country, leaders in education, and it was a really great opportunity for me to really be able to put some time aside to learn about whether it was accountability or curriculum, school choice, whatever it may be, we got to do — really great deep dives, to ask my dumb questions, and also hear from just the members of our cohort that have a different perspective than we might in Texas and have seen things differently than we have. So it was a really great opportunity for us to network, to learn, and really enjoy our experience.

Let’s talk about education savings accounts in Texas and start with the historic significance of this passing. I read that “the House voted 85 to 63 in the wee hours of the morning on April 17th to approve a bill authored by Representative Brad Buckley to establish an education savings account program.” So given the fact that close to 20 states have education savings accounts, 17 states have universal education freedom programs right now, and over 30 states have some private school choice or ESA program, this doesn’t sound like a big deal. But it was a big deal. So how difficult was it to get to this point, especially when we’re talking about the Texas House?

Vanessa: Texas is Texas. We have a really great public school community in all of our different parts of Texas. And in some areas, our public schools are the largest employer. We love our Friday night lights. Texas will always support our public schools. But for folks who wanted just another option for their kids, it seemed to be a little difficult for us to help message that to folks. We’re not trying to come after public schools. We’re trying to help support each student.

What we needed to do was to help better educate and make sure that we put in the safeguards that folks wanted for the program and to ensure that every student, every parent had the opportunity to find the right school that fit them. And it was just a large part in messaging and talking of members and staff and advocates to really try to, I want to say persuade them, but also just educate them on what our ultimate goal was: helping each student because we all know that every student has very unique needs.

Madison: It had to be a true coalition effort. I think our office really played a role in trying to keep everybody together and make sure that everybody was listening to everyone’s concerns and sometimes reality check people and be realistic about what we can get passed. Our other counterpart in this, Senator Creighton, was super helpful in that school choice had passed the Senate numerous times that was it was not an issue for them. They did a really good job of working with Vanessa and her boss and all of us on making sure that they were also being realistic about what could be passed on the House side, just being realistic about what could finally pass. We were all pleasantly surprised to end up where we did and that we ended up with a better, actually more expansive bill than we even anticipated two and a half years ago.

Well, you mentioned that the ESA proposals have passed the Senate and they’ve passed the Senate many times many years. Was this the first time that this passed the House?

Madison: Yes.

How has Governor Abbott expressed his support for education freedom? I know he’s held events around the state. He’s not just issuing press releases, right?

Madison: It really all started fall 2022. The governor made it very clear that there was a mandate from voters and Texans that parents needed to be put back in the driver’s seat for their kids’ education. And so from there, education freedom became number one priority for the governor, both on school choice, but then also several reforms within the public school system too when it comes to parental rights and making sure that parents can get their concerns addressed and are heard, that they know they have access to anything that their kid is being taught or seeing in a school, those sorts of things. The landmark issue was school choice, but it was more than that. It was reshifting the way we view education. And part of that is because we had already made significant investments on the school finance side, we passed a huge school finance bill in 2019 and then the pandemic happened and it created a bunch of new issues that we just weren’t aware of. I think that was the catalyst for a lot of this.

And then, after we didn’t get it passed in 2023, the governor doubled down, made it very clear that that was going to be his key campaign issue and that he was going to work with other leadership to make sure that this happened.

I believe in 2023 he was saying something along the lines of, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” The harder way would be ensuring that legislators who were not supportive did not receive his support coming into the elections leading to this legislative session. People might not know Texas meets every other year, right?

Madison: Yeah.

Representative Buckley is a former school board member. His wife is an assistant superintendent of a school district. Why has he become such a strong advocate for school choice?

Vanessa: He has this really great special needs private school in his district called Oak Creek Academy. His lifelong friend owns the school. She started the school. She was a special education teacher in public schools and just really saw a need to create something a little bit more tailored to student specific needs. And he visits the school regularly. He’s a veterinarian by day. So he comes often not as a state representative, but as a veterinarian to bring animals and visit with the students. And he’s met with the families at this school who’ve gone to a public school and who have just looked for something else. They needed something different for their child. This school charges, I believe it’s around $9,000 a year, which for a special needs private school is pretty incredible, but also families are making so many sacrifices to send their kids there. My boss has formerly Fort Hood – Fort Kavasos – in his district. Lots of military families come through his community, and he had an E3 in the army and a mom who was working two jobs and their grandmother had moved in to their house from out of state to help support them so that they could send their child with special needs to this great, great school.

And for him, it’s always been, if we can’t help those families who are making such significant sacrifices, then what are we doing here? So this has been something very important near and dear to his heart and in his community for some time. So that’s where it really all started for him. I got to see it firsthand by visiting the school and the families. I’ve had a really good front row view to what parents have experienced and what they’re trying to do with the sacrifices that they’re making for their kids.

Another state legislator said, “I can’t imagine anyone being a better author and spokesman for this bill than Brad Buckley.” And I wonder if telling those family stories was a part of being a spokesman for the bill.

Vanessa: Absolutely. Again, he has come from a long line of public school educators and served on the school board. And so for him, it wasn’t about an either or. This is just an extra tool in the toolbox for parents to have. And so he’s always been a really good voice for this issue because he knows that the vast majority of Texas students will always go to public schools and we need to do everything we can to support our public schools and our educators. But we also know that not every student is served best by their local public school. And just providing an extra option for those parents and those families. It’s best for those families, those students, but it’s better for the state and the future of this, the future of our great state here. He’s always had a very good perspective on it. And we were very fortunate that he was the leader on the House side for this issue.

Was there a clear delineation of who was in charge of communicating the need for ESAs internally to legislators versus who was the external communicator on this?

Vanessa: Well, it was a lot of everybody doing everything. We would work with different leaders in our own party to really message certain parts of the bill and answer questions through those members. We had what I call team captains on our side, really helping educate members and answer their questions. And then as needed, bringing in experts from the coalition world that we had here in Texas to help answer with any of the really small details of a bill.

Madison, would you say the governor’s job was to stay focused on talking with legislators or was he more the external communicator on this?

Madison: Once the legislature came into session, we had dozens of meetings, some one-on-one, some strategically in groups. We had a large class of freshmen members, and school choice was the key issue either because the governor was supporting them on that matter or because they came in with this wave of conservative members. A lot of it was reinforcing that my boss and Chairman Buckley were a team and he wanted to make it very clear that if you were going against Brad Buckley, you were going against the governor. And that was the most important to him – to make sure that they knew that the governor was backing Chairman Buckley and trusted him and knew that he wanted to make sure to empower him to be able to work the chamber.

And probably one of the biggest changes that happened was that we had a new speaker who was has been a staunch supporter of school choice and made it very clear that the House is going to get this done. There was no question. Then, throughout we would say, “OK, Vanessa, you who are you worried about right now? Who do we need to touch base with? Who do we need to just check in with and make sure that they’re okay?” Throughout session, if we heard rumors that somebody was starting to waiver or somebody talking about they’re going to put an amendment on there, we would talk about those members to reinforce the team spirit. Making sure it wasn’t a lack of communication that would cause anybody to have consternation. We played offense or defense based on what was needed.

Vanessa: Speaker Burrows was instrumental in getting this done. And we made it very clear from the very beginning that we would have a universal school choice program and a large school finance package, as we called it, the Texas Two-Step. Before we had the bill on the House floor, the Speaker was instrumental in getting us the 76 co-authors we needed for the bill. And so right away, even before it was on the floor, we knew we had the support we needed to get this bill across the finish line.

What wast the role of the outside advocacy groups?

Madison: First and foremost, educating the public, but then also just encouraging people to reach out so that members weren’t just getting calls about hate for school choice and the hate mail, but also that they were hearing that there are people back in their district that do want this and do support this. And I think that’s always helpful for members to know that this isn’t just something they’re doing because they’re being told, but there are people in their district that are passionate about this and care a lot about it. That was probably the most important piece of this. It’s like most things, your opposition is generally the loudest and the one that’s you know, making calls and showing up at the Capitol. That’s just that’s how it tends to be. So making sure that there was the positive side of things. I think it was really important. Groups like Texas Public Policy Foundation were really helpful in educating members.

Texas Catholic Conference and our private school association have been advocating for this 25 years ago. They know how schools operate and how families make those sorts of decisions and how families truly can be supported through a program like this. It’s one thing for us to come every day and say, “this is what the bill does and this is how it’ll work.” It’s another thing for people who will actually be on the ground, either operating schools or working directly with families to come and say, “this is crafted to work for us, it will work and will change how families move within our education system.”

An education savings account is broader than a voucher. Families can use it for a wide array of educational options, including tutoring, educational technology, and services for students with disabilities. How much money does the Texas ESA program provide for participating students?

Vanessa: There was a billion dollar appropriation; we’re estimating probably somewhere between 70 to maybe 90,000 students could potentially be served. It’ll roll out in the fall of 2026. A couple of key provisions that will make that number fluctuate. We put in a provision for special needs students to receive what they are entitled to in a public school, up to $30,000. We heard a lot from special education advocates that roughly a $10,000 ESA wouldn’t be enough to serve a special needs student. So we made sure that we put enough funding in the bill to make sure that they can get the services that they do require.

Do they need to have an IEP in order to prove eligibility?

Vanessa: An IEP in order to receive the additional dollars over the ESA amount.

This will be the biggest day one launch of an education freedom program. And that makes sense that it’s the biggest because Texas is so big. But what I hear you saying is that only a small percentage of students are going to be able to participate. How many K to 12 students do you have statewide?

Vanessa: Five and a half million.

Five and a half million, but you said how many students might be able to participate initially?

Vanessa: It’s roughly $10,000 ESA so with expenses that the program will obviously have, we’re looking at probably somewhere between 70 to 90,000.

So the sky’s not going to fall. All students are not going to leave public education and participate in the ESA program. Students with disabilities are going to receive that additional funding. So if the parents choose to participate, they will have the additional dollars. And will they also be prioritized as far as being able to access the ESAs?

Madison: We have a tiered priority and those students regardless of income are first in line along with what we call our first tier with the lower percentage of the federal poverty line. You have to have an IEP to determine what your funding amount would be over the base amount. But a student will only need a diagnosis to qualify through that priority side.

An IEP is the Individualized Education Program, which is something typically that students would have through a public school district in order to be able to access public education. So an IEP doesn’t necessarily apply or inform what students are going to need as far as services and accommodations at the private school. They can work with the private school to come up with a services plan that will include services that they’ll still be able to access at the district because that is a federally funded thing that private school students can access.

That’s 80% for the students with disabilities and the lower income families, and 20% for the general population or was I reading something that was mischaracterizing it?

Vanessa: We have priorities one, two, three, and four, which creates a universal program. Priorities one, two, and three would be about 80%. And then priority four is for families making over 500% of the federal poverty levels. And that is limited to 20% of the appropriation.

Madison: 100% could be taken up by those first tiers.

To ensure that those families of vulnerable students find out about the program, you’ve got to get implementation right. There’s time to do that, right?

Vanessa: The program will roll out technically in the fall of 2026. That’ll be the first school year that a student would be enrolled in an ESA program, but applications will begin in January of 2026.

Do you all turn it over to other folks as far as the implementation and making sure that families find out about the options? What happens next?

Madison: It’s certainly still a team effort. So our comptroller of public accounts — our state treasurer — is the one tasked with administering the program. They’ll work with our Texas Education Agency to implement pieces of the bill. We’ve been meeting with Comptroller staff regularly now, and they want feedback from our office and from the authors and sponsor of the bill. We also have a very interesting situation in that our Comptroller, who is independently elected here in Texas, is resigning to go to a university system. So my boss will actually be appointing the new comptroller. And so they’ll be in a situation of leadership change. And so there’s a lot happening at that agency right now. So I think even more so they’re leaning on legislative leadership and our office.

And will their role be to directly process the funding reimbursements that the families are asking for for the education savings account? How does that work?

Vanessa: Yes, they’re currently going through the process right now looking for a certified educational systems organization. We’re leaving that up to them how they decide they’re going to do that. The bill allowed for up to five of those organizations, whether they choose one or two or three, we leave it or leaving it to the Comptroller to decide how best to do that. You could see something where it’s one organization handling everything from marketing the program to taking the applications to being the marketplace or whatever it may be. But you could also have several different organizations in charge of something very specific at the same time. The bill was not super specific in that regard, we wanted to make sure that we allowed for a lot of flexibility to make sure that the Comptroller had what they needed to do to go find the best people to help manage the program.

Texas is a little late to the education savings accounts world, so you do have plenty of other states to look to, to see how these contracts are working, how these entities that do provide that service are performing. So hopefully that’s something that Texas can benefit from. You’re not the pioneers and can ensure that you are implementing best practices there.

One provision that I imagine was somewhat controversial is how the program will be monitored, specifically how testing will work. That often is a contentious issue. So participants, how will they be monitored or tested?

Madison: It’s a requirement of the bill that the private schools who are choosing to participate in the program, those [participating] students must take a nationally norm-referenced test. The testing piece was certainly one of the very controversial pieces. But I think this was also where our team captains came into play on the House side, making clear that if parents were choosing to leave the state education system, why would we be requiring the student to take a state test? Our test is developed meticulously to be aligned to our state standards.

[Testing] was not a huge issue for the private schools. As part of their accreditation, they require all of their schools to administer a nationally norm-referenced test. So it didn’t change anything for their practice. And we still allow the option, if a parent wants to know where their student stands compared to the state standards, they have the option of their student being administered the STAAR test. They may be curious how their student is performing compared to public school students. So they do at least have the option, but given its practice for private schools to administer a national norm-referenced test, we imagine most will take that option.

Madison, I feel like you said something very important there that accredited Texas private schools offer nationally norm-referenced tests. My daughter who just graduated from a K-8 private school in Virginia where she took the NWEA MAP testing three times a year. I knew exactly how she was doing.

Anything else on the mechanics of the program, on the implementation that you all would want to address?

Vanessa: We’re really excited. It’s been a long time coming. We’re just making sure that we go through the rollout properly and that we’re staying engaged, involved in the implementation process and making sure that families are aware because we live in our bubble here. We know all about this program, but Texas is very large state and we need to be making sure that folks in the Panhandle down in the Rio Grande Valley and from El Paso to Houston know about the program and know their options.

Madison: Looking at the first year launch, we want to sure we’re balancing innovation, which is the whole point of the ESA, and ensuring a smooth launch. We want to make sure that parents are aware of it so that they can apply and access.

We had our first foray into this with our supplemental special education services, our public school special education ESA. And so we have a population of parents that are already familiar with the concept that will help within the community of special education parents. We hear countless stories from those families and how life-changing it was for them. And some actually ended up leaving public school once they saw that they didn’t necessarily need the safety net of the public school for their student, that they actually had a pretty good idea of what their child needed and that they could actually make those decisions on their own.

Vanessa: We got a lot of really not great calls for a long time. But the moment we passed the bill, we got calls from families asking, “where can I apply?” It was such a great feeling to get those other calls from families really wanting to be engaged and know what they needed to do, what their next steps are. That was really just a gratifying feeling for all of us.

What’s the ESA myth that you all heard the most during legislative session? News clips showed anti-education freedom groups claiming that the ESA program “favors wealthy families and will deepen educational disparities.” Was that a lot of what you were hearing?

Vanessa: Yes, we heard a lot of that and we know that that’s not true. Our whole goal has always been to prioritize Texas’ most vulnerable students. And that’s what the bill does. And so we have been very confident from the beginning that that is what our goal was, that that’s what drives us to pursue this program. And that’s why it was prioritized, but also recognizing that income levels across the state are also very different. When you do these different poverty levels, $160,000 in Austin, Texas is a lot different than in Harlingen, Texas, in the Valley. We know where we sit on it. We know that this program will be geared towards our most vulnerable students. So that was really important to us.

Madison, what was the myth that you heard the most?

Madison: We heard the rural myth of that this won’t benefit rural Texans, but then at the same time will destroy rural Texas. I’m from a small town of about a thousand people. My family made enormous sacrifice so that all my sisters and I could go through Montessori and start with a Catholic education. And then we moved to public school, but we also went to a public school that we weren’t zoned to. We drove and we were transfer students. And then my sisters then moved back to our zoned school. And so we’ve seen all the different options. The vast majority of Texans do live within driving distance of a private school, but we also have a very vast homeschooling community here in Texas. Wichita Falls area in Northwest Texas has a very robust homeschool community. That’s already a population that can benefit from this.

That one was to me the most frustrating because a lot of times it was, one, coming from people who actually don’t understand rural Texas and know rural Texas. But then, two, it was always a double argument of this is both going to destroy rural Texas, but also not benefit for rural Texas which was always a very confusing one for me. Which one is it?

As Vanessa alluded to earlier, we can do both: We can make enormous investment in public education and provide parents the option.

So this Texas two-step first was passing the ESA and then there was this large investment in Texas public schools. How big of an investment was this bill?

Vanessa: $8.5 billion. Yeah, it was a big deal.

We created the teacher retention allotment and so really focus on keeping teachers in the classroom. We did it for our three year and five year educators and some parts of Texas. They’ll be receiving an $8000 teacher pay raise that the state will continue to support. That amount varied across the state, but the top range is around $8000 for teacher pay raises and mostly in our rural communities where we see a big pay gap there for our teachers. We wanted to make sure we were supporting our educators in rural Texas, but of course across the whole state we’re seeing it. Also included in $8.5 billion bill was a number of policy reforms, everything from educator prep, to our reading academies and math academies, CTE, which I know is super important to the governor. We did a number of things for not only to just put dollars into the classroom, but truly make different policy reforms that will help better educate our students and ultimately help our workforce down the road.

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