With just days to go before the launch of one of the largest school choice programs in the country, Texas officials are fighting to ensure that no taxpayer funds go to institutions tied to the Chinese Communist Party or radical Islam.
On Saturday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a legal opinion confirming the ability of acting state Comptroller Kelly Hancock to deny participation to schools tied to America’s adversaries in the Texas Education Freedom Account program. Hancock, who is overseeing the school choice program, told The Daily Wire that his office has identified “more than a handful” of schools with problematic ties.
“There were several schools in Texas that are connected to the Chinese Communist Party, and those that hosted events [with] or are potentially connected to [the Council on American Islamic Relations],” Hancock said.
CAIR, a self-described civil rights organization with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, was designated as a terrorist organization in November by Governor Greg Abbott.
Hancock said that his office’s “priority was protecting taxpayer dollars to make sure that they didn’t end up in the hands of groups that support terrorist activity” or were “hostile” to the United States.
The Republican official is overseeing the rollout of Texas’ school choice program, which will allocate $1 billion in funding for parents to use for approved education expenses, including tuition at private schools. His office is responsible for approving schools that participate in the program and has greenlit 1,457 schools across the state.
As part of this approval process, Hancock said his office wanted to make sure that no schools with ties to CAIR or the CCP would benefit from state dollars.
“We saw some stories breaking in other states that have school choice,” Hancock told The Daily Wire. “I never lost sleep because we were ahead of the game and protecting those taxpayer dollars.”
Many of the schools flagged with problematic ties were accredited through Cognia, an accreditation nonprofit that vets many charter and private schools across the country. Hancock initially paused all approvals for schools accredited by Cognia, including some private Christian schools. But, with the legal opinion from Paxton, many Cognia-accredited schools are now being registered with the state, assuming they have no ties to foreign adversaries.
“We do want to make sure that we run it like a business, and try to protect taxpayer dollars on both sides of it,” Hancock said, asking people to be patient while his office vetted participants.
Hancock told The Daily Wire that the vetting and investigation of schools was still ongoing.
Some examples flagged by his office included the accrediting of potential providers by an agency that had hosted events alongside CAIR and another school that appeared to be owned by a group with an adviser linked to the CCP.
CAIR Texas suggested that it might sue Hancock if he scrutinizes schools that “once hosted an educational lecture from a civil rights organization that Greg Abbott happens to dislike.”
“Comptroller Hancock cannot bar private schools from this program because of their real or imagined interactions with CAIR-Texas, especially since Attorney General Paxton has sworn to a federal court that the governor’s unconstitutional proclamation targeting CAIR does not apply to any of its CAIR-Texas chapters,” the organization said. “Comptroller Hancock must permit private Muslim schools to participate in the program without facing any discrimination, heightened scrutiny or further delays in the application process.”
Abbott praised Paxton’s opinion, saying it would ensure that taxpayer “dollars will not be used for schools connected to groups like CAIR or countries like China that I have designated as foreign terrorist organizations.”
Parents can start applying for education scholarships on February 4, and the application period runs until March 17.
