The Truth Behind School Choice in Texas - Edgewood ISD -TPPF & Leininger
How Vouchers/ESAs Weaken Public Education and Expand Government Control Over Private and Home Schools

As Texas lawmakers debate school choice and taxpayer-funded vouchers, the story of Edgewood ISD’s failed voucher experiment should serve as a warning. Despite claims that school vouchers increase opportunity and improve education, the reality is that government-regulated school choice benefits private institutions, weakens public schools, and fuels a dangerous agenda to dismantle traditional education systems while extending government overreach into private and homeschool education.
By examining Edgewood ISD’s decade-long experience with vouchers and the key players behind today’s push for school choice, we uncover a disturbing trend: a calculated effort to divert public funds into private hands while using school choice as a Trojan horse to impose government regulations on families who have chosen to educate their children independently.
The Edgewood Voucher Experiment: A Rigged Game from the Start
The Edgewood voucher program, officially called the CEO Horizon Scholarship, began in 1998 and lasted until 2008. Funded by billionaire James Leininger and the Walton Family Foundation, it provided students living in Edgewood ISD up to $6,500 to attend private schools. However, this amount rarely covered full tuition and other costs such as uniforms, books, and transportation. Many low-income families who initially left Edgewood ISD for private schools found themselves unable to keep up with the financial burden and returned.
Even more alarming was how private schools controlled student selection. They could deny admission to students with special needs, behavioral issues, or those requiring bilingual education. This created a “brain drain” effect—high-performing students left Edgewood ISD, while struggling students were either turned away or forced to return to a now underfunded public school system.
Edgewood ISD teachers witnessed the devastating impact firsthand:
Declining Test Scores: With top-performing students leaving, overall academic performance at Edgewood dropped.
Special Education Neglect: Students with disabilities had no choice but to return to public schools, which had lost funding needed to support them.
Financial Ruin: Over the course of the program, Edgewood ISD lost $75 million in state and federal funding—money that could have been reinvested in improving the district.
Despite pro-voucher advocates claiming that school choice increases competition, Edgewood ISD’s experience proves the opposite: vouchers create an education caste system where private schools cherry-pick students while public schools struggle with dwindling resources and increasing challenges.
Who Really Wins? The Shadow Agenda Behind School Choice
The Edgewood experiment was never about improving education for low-income students. It was a strategic attempt to privatize public education under the guise of “school choice.” At the center of this effort was James Leininger, the billionaire financier behind Texas’ voucher movement.
James Leininger and the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF)
In 1989, Leininger founded the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) to push a radical pro-privatization agenda. TPPF’s mission, as described by former president John K. Andrews, was to use Texas as the launchpad for a national voucher movement. Through well-funded academic research, lobbying, and media campaigns, TPPF has worked relentlessly to convince lawmakers and the public that vouchers are the solution to failing schools.
Leininger and his allies don’t care about educational freedom—their goal is to defund public education and shift taxpayer dollars into private hands. TPPF’s influence on Texas policy has only grown stronger, with powerful lobbyists and politicians pushing the same talking points used during the Edgewood experiment.
The TPPF Playbook: Pushing Public-Private Partnerships Under the Guise of ‘Free Market’ Policies
TPPF presents itself as a champion of limited government and free-market solutions. However, a deeper look into their policy positions reveals they are advancing an agenda that is the complete opposite of free-market capitalism and constitutional governance.
By promoting Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), TPPF is facilitating government control over private institutions, including schools, through taxpayer funding. While they claim not to accept direct government funds, they are heavily backed by corporations and private interests that have a vested stake in manipulating policy outcomes.
PPPs blur the lines between private enterprise and government, allowing government intervention into private sectors without direct accountability to taxpayers. In education, this manifests as:
State-funded charter schools that operate as “public” schools but are privately managed.
Virtual learning programs that funnel tax dollars into EdTech corporations while collecting massive amounts of student data.
Voucher-funded private schools that become subject to government oversight, ultimately eroding their autonomy.
Instead of creating a true free-market education system, TPPF is using deceptive language to push a government-managed school choice system that increases regulatory control over private and homeschool families.
The Walmart Connection: The Walton Family’s Role in Privatization
The Walton Family Foundation, best known for its ties to Walmart, was another key backer of the Edgewood voucher program. The Waltons have a long history of supporting charter schools and school choice initiatives—not out of philanthropy, but because privatization benefits corporate interests.
By dismantling traditional public schools, corporations like Walmart create a pipeline of undereducated, low-wage workers while securing lucrative investments in private education ventures. Their support for school choice is not about giving parents options; it’s about increasing corporate control over education.
The Real Danger: How School Choice Expands Government Control Over Private and Home Schools
One of the most underreported dangers of government-regulated school choice is how it acts as a gateway to government interference in private and home education.
Many parents choose private schools or homeschooling to escape the bureaucratic overreach, ideological agendas, and declining academic standards of the public education system. However, under a government-funded school choice model, these same parents may unwittingly invite government control into their independent education choices.
Vouchers Come with Strings Attached
The moment government money is accepted, government regulations will follow. If private and homeschool families begin accepting tax-funded vouchers, state oversight will inevitably expand to dictate:
Curriculum requirements that align with government standards (i.e., Common Core or Social-Emotional Learning).
Standardized testing mandates to track compliance.
Certification and credentialing requirements for teachers, even in home education settings.
Data collection and surveillance of students' learning progress, effectively pulling private and homeschool families into the government tracking system.
What starts as “free money” quickly turns into government control. It is naïve to believe that state-funded vouchers will not come with regulatory strings that eventually undermine parental authority and autonomy in education.
The Trojan Horse of Virtual Learning
Another key aspect of government-regulated school choice is the push for virtual learning, which acts as a mechanism for increased data collection and behavioral conditioning.
Virtual learning, often tied to voucher programs, allows the government and private tech corporations to track, monitor, and influence student behavior through digital platforms. Under these programs:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) monitors students' learning habits and psychological responses.
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) frameworks condition students' beliefs and attitudes in ways that align with government and corporate agendas.
Centralized databases collect lifelong digital records on students, creating a permanent education dossier that could determine future job opportunities, college admissions, or government services.
Homeschool and private school families must resist any push to integrate with government-regulated virtual learning programs, as they serve as a backdoor to state control.
The Fight to Preserve Educational Freedom
The greatest threat to education today is not a lack of options, but a lack of commitment to public schools and the creeping government overreach into private and home education. If Texas lawmakers allow vouchers to drain the public school system while pulling independent educators into state-controlled programs, the damage will be irreversible.
Instead of diverting public funds to private institutions with hidden government oversight, Texas lawmakers should be:
Fully funding public schools to provide better resources, teacher pay, and infrastructure.
Leaving private and homeschool families alone, ensuring they remain free from government intrusion.
Rejecting virtual learning mandates that turn education into a digital surveillance system.
Holding private institutions accountable if they accept public money—ensuring they do not become regulated in the same way as failing public schools.
The real choice parents should be fighting for is a well-funded, high-quality public education system that serves all children, alongside a completely independent private and homeschool sector that remains free from government control.
Conclusion: The Real Threat to Education
The school choice agenda is not about empowering students—it’s about dismantling public education while extending government oversight into private and homeschool settings.
Texans must ask themselves: Who benefits from school choice? The answer is clear—not students, not teachers, not independent families, but the billionaires and corporations looking to control the future of education.
If we don’t stop this now, the future of education will be privatized, unaccountable, digitized, and government-regulated. This is not about choice. This is about control.
Take time to listen to this short 3 min. video by State Board of Education (SBOE) District 14 representative warning about the Voucher/Government regulated school choice agenda. Watch and SHARE?