Funding A Voucher Push in the Lone Star State
If you want to understand the push for vouchers in Texas, where it has been tried over and over but has never gotten across a finish line, you need only follow the money to figure out this has been a multi-year (heck, multi-decade) push to erode trust in public education, to seed propaganda in certain faith communities, and wait for a party to be fully overtaken and run by a version of faith that intertwines politics, racism, patriarchy, and a disdain for critical thinking.
Texas went through the last regular session of the legislature with vouchers hanging over it, and when the Governor said additional funding for public education wouldn’t be signed unless vouchers were included, public education didn’t get desperately needed additional funds, with the basic allotment per student staying at $6,160, where it has been since 2019, vouchers didn’t pass. And then across four special sessions in 2023, the Governor continued to push for vouchers, with the same stipulations: no voucher, no additional money for public education. Vouchers didn’t pass.
So what happened from there? Money poured in to attempt to unseat those who opposed vouchers. That money and propaganda knocked off several legislators who voted for pretty much everything that the party wanted them to, including things that harm public education, but said no to vouchers. Several others in the same boat are now scheduled for run-off elections in May.
Let’s understand what you see when you dig into who has been pushing vouchers and where they are getting their money. We will focus on 2021 to now, to keep this as tight and current as possible.
Texas Federation for Children
This is the Texas version of American Federation for Children, Betsy DeVos’s organization before she joined the Trump administration as Secretary of Education (bwah ha ha!). From January 2021 through February 2024, they took in over $1 million.
It’s just 22 donors total
Stacy Hock (TX) - $245,000
American Federation for Children (DC) - $189,348
Richard DeVos (MI) - $140,000
Betsy DeVos (MI) - $125,000
Richard Weekley (TX) - $110,000
Alexis Cranberg (MA) - $28,000
Coalition Por / For Texas PAC - $12,500
Mayes Middleton (TX) - $10,000
AFC Victory Fund
When TFC above didn’t get it done, they shifted money to a new PAC to make more noise. It’s still American Federation for Children. From December 2023 to February 2024, they took in $9,014,100. Please note how much bigger this amount is, coming in just 3 months.
It’s just 26 donors total.
Jeff Yass (PA) - $4,000,000
Richard Uihlein (IL) - $2,000,000
Betsy DeVos (MI) - $500,000 (See Texas Federation for Children above)
Richard DeVos (MI) - $500,000 (See Texas Federation for Children above)
Future of Education LLC (TX) - $500,000
Stacy Hock (TX) - $200,000 (See Texas Federation for Children above)
Mayes Middleton (TX) - $200,000 (See Texas Federation for Children above)
Family Empowerment Coalition
Family Empowerment Coalition started collecting contributions in June of 2023, and has raised a total of $1,417,480.
It’s just 35 donors total.
Andrew Price (TX) - $275,000
Alexis Cranberg (MA) - $225,000 (See Texas Federation for Children above)
Joe Popolo (TX) - $175,000
Leo Linbeck (TX) - $170,000
Darwin Deason (TX) - $160,000
Stacy Hock (TX) - $150,000 (See Texas Federation for Children and AFC Victory Fund above)
Doug Deason (TX) - $70,000 (Darwin is his dad)
Texans for Educational Freedom
This group was originally the Freedom Foundation of Texas (or FFOT) but decided to change their name. Their first contribution was in August 2021
They have 171 total donors, but the top 10 make up 72% of their $1,764,921.
Frederick Saunders (TX) - $245,000
Monty Bennett (TX) - $242,000
Alexis Cranberg (MA) - $200,000 (See Texas Federation for Children and Family Empowerment Coalition above)
Coalition Por / For Texas PAC - $150,000 ((See Texas Federation for Children above)
Richard Weekley (TX) - $147,500 (See Texas Federation for Children above) (He is one of 7 contributors to Coalition Por / For Texas PAC)
Charter Schools Now PAC - $73,186 (Don’t let anyone tell you Charters and Vouchers aren’t related. They very much are.)
James Leininger (TX) - $60,000
Mayes Middleton (TX) - $50,000 (See Texas Federation for Children and AFC Victory Fund above)
Stacy Hock (TX) - $25,000 (See Family Empowerment Coalition, AFC Victory Fund, Texas Federation for Children above)
Note that we are multiple groups into this listing and still no mention of the favorite targets of Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. We are going to rectify that here, but there is more to go beyond this one, so there are bigger donors to focus on. And I pause deliberately here to make sure everyone understands, this isn’t just a Tim Dunn / Farris Wilks thing and if they stop giving money, the Christian nationalism disappears. It won’t. Others step in to carry the goal and ideology. Until you start rejecting the root of the rot, the weeds keep popping up. Ok, let’s roll again!
Texans United for a Conservative Majority / Texas Conservative Project / Defend Texas Liberty
Yeah, all three are really the same two billionaires calling the shots, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. They pivot to new groups when an old one stops working so well, or they just want to amplify their own voices, making the web a little more complex. First contribution to any of the three was in August 2021.
Across all three PACs there is a total of 274 donors and a total of $20,550,569, but Dunn and Wilks are 90% of the total.
Tim Dunn (TX) - $11,411,000
Farris Wilks (TX) - $6,130,000
Hexagon Partners - $1,150,000 (This is really Tim Dunn too)
Windi Grimes (TX) - $596,500
Monty Bennett (TX) - $35,000 (See Texans for Educational Freedom above)
Texas Public Policy Foundation
This one isn’t about following money. It’s about following the power that money buys. Texas Public Policy Foundation is a “conservative think tank” that attempts to influence legislation in Texas. Why are they included in this list? Well, in November 2021, their CEO Kevin Roberts sent out a letter talking about public education. Here are all four pages.
So, as you can see, they aren’t exactly pro-public education, and saw this is the moment to go all in on vouchers.
Who are some of the members on the Board of Directors of the Texas Public Policy Foundation?
Tim Dunn - Vice Chairman of the Board (See TUCM, DTL, and TCP above)
Stacy Hock (See Texas Federation for Children, AFC Victory Fund, Family Empowerment Coalition, and Texans for Educational Freedom above)
Windi Grimes (See TUCM, DTL, and TCP above)
Doug Deason (See Family Empowerment Coalition above)
James Leininger - Founder (See Texans for Educational Freedom above)
Mayes Middleton - Former Board Member (See Texas Federation for Children, AFC Victory Fund, and Texans for Educational Freedom above)
So when you see a letter like the above from the CEO (who has since gone on to lead the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025), you know the Board of Directors is very much in favor of it.
School Freedom Fund
Here is where the money gets really crazy. Big dollars. School Freedom Fund is a Federal PAC and had their first contribution in November of 2021 (hey, that was the same month as the TPPF letter!). I wonder if School Freedom Fund is affiliated with another group? If they are, it’s probably up next.
School Freedom Fund have had a total of 9 unique contributors, giving $24,682,210
Jeff Yass (PA) - $20,200,000 (that’s 81.8% of the total) (See AFC Victory Fund above)
Richard Uihlein (IL) - $2,000,000 (See AFC Victory Fund above)
Virginia James (NJ) - $1,007,210
Bernard Marcus (GA) - $1,000,000
Thomas Klingstein (NY) - $250,000
Joe Popolo (TX) - $100,000 (See Family Empowerment Coalition above)
Monty Bennett (TX) - $50,000 (See Texans for Educational Freedom and TUCM, DTL, and TCP above)
Club for Growth Action
Club for Growth has been around for a while, and Club for Growth Action has seen sooooo much money come in since January 2021. I’m going to focus on just those giving $50,000 or more.
There have been 106 unique contributors giving $50k or more to Club for Growth Action, giving a total of $118,823,549. Yeah, not a typo.
Richard Uihlein (IL) - $42,340,680 (35.6% of the total) (See AFC Victory Fund and School Freedom Fund above)
Jeff Yass (PA) - $36,000,000 (30.3% of the total) (See AFC Victory Fund and School Freedom Fund above)
School Freedom Fund - $4,000,000 (I assume this is just moving money around, as remember when I asked about affiliations earlier. Well, SFF is directly connected to Club For Growth Action. On their website, the number to contact them is just the Club For Growth number.)
Tim Dunn - $450,000 (See TUCM, DTL, and TCP and Texas Public Policy Foundation above)
Club for Growth Action isn’t close to done trying to buy vouchers in Texas. They have announced they are planning to drop $4,000,000 into 5 runoff elections in May. Wow.
And when following the money, we can’t ignore direct contributions from billionaires to elected officials. And we DEFINITELY can’t ignore the $6,000,000 check Jeff Yass (See AFC Victory Fund, School Freedom Fund, and Club For Growth Action above) wrote to Governor Greg Abbott.
So much money, so many intertwining elements, and so much noise and confusion. I like to try and connect the dots to help people see it. If you read this far, I probably owe you that connecting of dots.
If you’d like a better look at the diagram, it’s available here.
When you see an ad, always look to see who paid for it. And when you see anything relating to ANY of these groups, you know it’s all connected. It’s all about the interests of billionaires.
There is nothing grassroots about the push for vouchers. It is the epitome of astroturf, but done over the longer haul, with billionaires playing upon the innate fears of the “other”, attempting to tear down the reputation of the public schools, all in the name of “choice”. But that isn’t what it’s really about. It’s been the same three things since 1954, when the Supreme Court decided Brown v Board of Education, desegregating the public schools.
Racism
Religion
Money
For those in the web, it could be one, two, or all three of these items, but make no mistake, they are the driver. And these billionaires are more than happy to take the wheel and decimate what is the foundation of our democracy, the public school.
If you want to support public education, make sure you show up at the ballot box every chance you get. But make no mistake, supporting public education is about more than just a legislator voting against a voucher. It’s about supporting the students and staff that fill those classrooms. They are very diverse, deserve to have expertise recognized, be taught real history, see themselves represented in books on library shelves, be able to participate in athletics and extracurriculars, be addressed in a manner that makes them feel good, be supported for who they are, and most of all, they need funding. When we get our of our teachers way and give them the tools they have been asking for, it unlocks the potential of our young people.
The people pushing vouchers, they don’t want any of what I described above. Just look back at the TPPF letter. It spelled out the whole game. We don’t need any more legislators (or school board trustees) who tear down the people inside our school system and merely hold up the walls and tell us “see, I’m supporting public ed”.
Vote for Public Education. Vote for our kids. Vote for our democracy.
As always, thank you for reading to the bottom. Please share if you thought this was worthwhile!
Chris