Texans could begin applying for school vouchers in February

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Texas families wanting to participate in the state’s upcoming school voucher program could apply as soon as February, while the application process for private schools hoping to join is set to launch before the end of the year.

Those details were revealed in the state’s $52 million contract with New York-based finance and technology company Odyssey, which Texas’ chief financial officer recently hired to help design and manage the voucher program. The Texas Tribune and ProPublica reviewed the contract after filing an open records request following Odyssey’s appointment.

Odyssey agreed to a “project work plan” that sets a tentative date of Dec. 2, 2025, for schools to register to become one of the options where families can spend funds awarded by the state. The agreement also set Feb. 4, 2026, as the date when it will start receiving parent applications; that window would remain open until mid-March. The company will design those processes, as well as the system parents will use to shop for educational products and pay tuition.

The state could end up paying Odyssey up to $52 million for its services over the next four years — $26 million for the first two and an additional $26 million for another two if the contract gets renewed. Texas law allows the state to pay Odyssey up to 5% of the program’s $1 billion in funding, or $50 million, each year. That number could skyrocket over the next five years, when legislative budget experts predict the program’s funding to reach nearly $5 billion.

Texas’ voucher program will allow families to apply for thousands of dollars in public taxpayer dollars to fund their children’s private or home-school education. The comptroller’s office, which oversees finances for all of the state government, is responsible for oversight of the program.

According to the documents obtained by the Tribune and ProPublica, the bidding process for Texas’ voucher program came down to three finalists: Odyssey, ClassWallet and Student First Technologies. ClassWallet and Student First Technologies offered their services to the state at a price tag of $79 million and $93 million, respectively. State law allows the comptroller to select up to five organizations to help manage the program, but it chose to only hire Odyssey.

The company’s website says Odyssey was created to assist states in creating education savings accounts, a type of voucher program. Its work has not come without scrutiny, including an audit in Idaho that identified up to $180,000 in ineligible, taxpayer-funded purchases that the company had to pay back.

A contest founded by the Yass family awarded $500,000 to Odyssey in 2023. Jeff Yass, a Pennsylvania billionaire investor, donated a state record $6 million to Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign last year during his effort to unseat the Texas Republicans who helped derail an earlier voucher proposal from becoming law. After winning the half-million-dollar award, Joseph Connor, Odyssey’s founder and CEO, applauded the Yasses for starting “an incredible movement to push for school choice and education freedom nationwide.”

Odyssey has also hired three subcontractors — Steel Digital Studios, Vianovo and Outschool — to help Texas spread awareness about the program. That campaign is expected to launch at the end of the month.

Lexi Churchill contributed to this report.

Disclosure: Vianovo has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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