Texas is on the verge of starting one of the country’s largest school voucher programs, with about 130,000 applications already in for the next school year.
The program, which will give families state money to pay for private education, has been a darling of conservatives and almost universally opposed by state Democrats, who worry that it will siphon money away from public schools.
But early childhood experts say the program could also have a surprising ripple effect, one that could align with a longtime goal of left-leaning politicians and education advocates: making early child care more affordable.
The new program has yet to launch, but experts say a last-minute decision to include preschoolers means that more families may be able to afford preschool in the fall. That could, in turn, loosen up spots for some babies and toddlers.
“It’s really interesting and surprisingly wonderful,” said Monty Exter, a lobbyist for the Association of Texas Professional Educators, the state’s largest teachers’ group. His group opposes the voucher program, but he praised the inclusion of preschool as a “positive development” that could help more children come to kindergarten prepared.
Already, the new Texas private school choice program has received more than 16,000 applications for preschool, “more than any other grade level,” said Travis Pillow, a spokesman for the program in the state comptroller’s office. And thousands of private day cares and preschools have signed up.
The new program offers education savings accounts, a type of voucher, which will start next school year. Families will be eligible for $10,400 per student per year to pay for private school, including preschool. (Students with disabilities are eligible for up to $30,000, while home-schooled students can receive $2,000.)
The program focuses on kindergarten through 12th grade, but preschool students are eligible if they meet certain conditions, such as coming from a lower-income family, or learning English as a second language.
Those families can already attend free preschool at Texas public schools. But less than half of eligible children are enrolled, for a variety of reasons. Some areas have limited seats, and many working families need extended hours beyond a school day ending at 3 p.m.
“This just opens up another accessible option for families,” said Catherine Davis, policy director at Child Care Associates, an early childhood nonprofit in Fort Worth.
It’s unclear how many preschoolers may get a spot in the new program.
The state will hold a lottery, using priority tiers that give preference to students with disabilities and low-income families, until the state hits a $1 billion cap. That could cover roughly 90,000 students in the first year.
So far, about 7,600 preschool applicants have been deemed eligible for the lottery, after excluding families that did not meet the tighter eligibility guidelines for preschool. Still, because the preschool guidelines put a focus on lower-income families, many of those applicants are likely to have a good chance in the lottery.
Experts say that if more lower-income families can use a voucher for private preschool, it may have a trickle-down effect on younger children.
Statewide, about 100,000 children are on a wait list for a child care subsidy for families who meet income restrictions. If some families on the list with older children could instead qualify for a voucher to pay for private preschool, advocates say, it could open up spots for the babies and toddlers on the list.
That could be transformative for parents like Chelsea Session, 31, of Fort Worth, who said she has been on the wait list since shortly after her first child was born five years ago.
With the cost of day care “astronomical,” Ms. Session initially relied on family members to care for her daughter while she worked at a staffing agency doing recruiting. But she had to miss work when her family was not available, she said, and lost her job.
Now, she is looking for work again, after having her second daughter last year. Because of the cost of day care, she has been limiting her search to jobs she can do from home. But if she were to get off the wait list, “I would have a broader range of career options to choose from,” she said.
Still, even the most ambitious projections suggest that a limited number of families — perhaps several thousand in the first year — are likely to reap early child care or preschool benefits.
“We would never say it offsets the negative impact of the voucher program overall,” said Carrie Griffith, executive director of Our Schools Our Democracy, a public school advocacy group, which has criticized the program for funneling public money into private schools with little oversight.
Her group has argued for fully funding public preschool in Texas, which is funded at a half-day rate, leaving school districts to make up the difference. If early education is important, she said, “why not do it right, and do it for all children?”
Republicans in Texas have said that the private school choice program will help families choose the education that is best for them, and last year, the Republican-led Legislature added $100 million to try to reduce the wait list for the state’s child care scholarships.
Private day cares have seized on the chance to sign up for state money, which they hope will help stabilize an industry that operates on thin profit margins. Because of the staffing ratios needed to serve babies, many day cares lose money on infants, and rely on the tuition of older children to stay afloat.
At Rise Academy, a day care and preschool in Allen, a Dallas suburb, parents pay about $1,300 a month for infants, but the true cost is about double that, said the owner, Kurt Hutson.
With the new voucher program, Mr. Hutson plans to open a new grade level for kindergarten and charge around $10,400 in annual tuition, the amount of the state scholarship.
Adding in kindergarten could be attractive to working parents, who want a single drop-off for their older and younger children, Mr. Hutson said. But it could also help keep tuition from ballooning for babies and toddlers.
“It helps us keep the price of the younger ones down a little bit,” he said.
Sarah Mervosh covers education for The Times, focusing on K-12 schools.
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