Republican-led States Keep Adding School Voucher Programs Even As Critics Worry About Cost

State lawmakers across the U.S. are pushing to use more taxpayer dollars to pay for private school tuitions and homeschooling expenses even as they try to figure out how to budget in a time of economic uncertainty .

A 1 billion-per-year voucher program the Texas Legislature sent to the governor last week and a longshot push in Congress to expand vouchers nationally, including to states that have rejected them, are focusing attention on the issue.

In states that already have programs to pay private education costs for most students, the expense has quickly gobbled up more of their budgets as revenue growth has slowed or stalled. Besides Texas, Tennessee adopted a program this year, and North Dakota gave serious consideration to one before a veto last week likely ended its prospects this year.

States are required to produce annual spending plans that don't exceed what they bring in. With pandemic-era federal money mostly phased out, voucher opponents fear the programs will come at the expense of other priorities, including public schools.

"Even if they're being funded by separate revenue sources, it can feel like school choice programs and public schools are competing for the same slice of an increasingly smaller pie," said Page Forrest, who analyzes state finances at the nonpartisan think tank Pew.