Most Greater Houston families who looked at Texas Education Freedom Accounts this year were looking at one number: $10,474, the amount the state puts behind a child at an accredited private school. There is a second number in the program that gets far less attention, and for a growing share of Houston households it is the one that applies: $2,000 a year for a child who is learning somewhere other than a participating private school. If you homeschool, run a two-day hybrid schedule, or you simply did not get a full award, that $2,000 account is what is on the table. Here is what it actually covers in the nine-county Houston area, and where the rules bite.
Two amounts, and a door that only swings one way
The state sets the private-school award at 85% of the statewide average of state and local funding per public school student, which worked out to $10,474 for 2026-27. A child with an active IEP on file with TEA can draw up to $30,000, though the state says plainly that most will receive less than that ceiling, and that larger amount is tied to attending a participating private school. Everyone else accepted into the program, homeschoolers included, receives $2,000.
The timing rule matters more than most families realize. Educational setting locked when the application window closed on March 17, 2026. After that date, a family could move from private school to homeschool/other and drop to $2,000, but could not make a change that produced more funding. In other words: you can step down mid-year, never up. If your plan for next year involves a full-award private school, that decision has to be made inside the application window, not in August.
Those step-downs are not a footnote. When families opted out or switched to homeschool/other, the freed money moved the line. In late June the state issued 5,499 new awards to waitlisted students, all of them in priority tier 2 — households at or below 200% of the federal poverty level — and said the funding came from exactly that: opt-outs and families who selected homeschool/other at the $2,000 level.
What the $2,000 can be spent on
The approved list is the same list the bigger awards use, minus private school tuition. For a Houston homeschool family that means curriculum and instructional materials, private tutoring, academic assessments, online courses, educational therapies not already covered by a government benefit such as Medicaid, required uniforms, transportation to and from approved providers, and fees for a public school class the child takes without being counted for attendance.
Two limits do real work on a small account. Computer hardware and software are capped at 10% of the annual transfer, which on a $2,000 account is $200 — enough for a keyboard and a license, not a laptop. And funds cannot be paid to a family member, so the aunt who teaches algebra on Tuesdays cannot be the vendor. Purchases also have to run through the program marketplace; anything bought outside it is not reimbursed, which is the single most common way families lose money they were entitled to. Our technology rules page and the curriculum and materials breakdown walk through where each category starts and stops.
Houston has more approved providers than most families use
A $2,000 account is only as good as what you can buy with it nearby. Our provider directory currently lists 406 registered education service providers across the Houston metro: 183 offering tutoring, 155 offering therapy, 97 offering enrichment, and 52 selling curriculum, supplies or testing. By county, 240 are in Harris, 79 in Fort Bend, 52 in Montgomery, 25 in Brazoria, and the rest spread across Galveston, Waller and Chambers. A further 123 serve families online, which matters if you are in Tomball or Dayton rather than inside the Loop.
The practical reading: speech, reading intervention and math tutoring are the easiest categories to spend a small account on well, because Houston has depth there — 72 providers list speech, 52 list dyslexia and dysgraphia, 122 list math. You can browse them by category on our tutoring and curriculum, supplies and testing pages.
Texas asks almost nothing of homeschoolers — the account asks more
Homeschooling has been legal in Texas since the 1994 Leeper decision, which treats home-taught children as exempt from compulsory attendance on the same footing as private school students. TEA states that it does not regulate, index, monitor, approve, register or accredit home school programs. Parents provide a course of study that includes good citizenship, and a district may ask in writing for a letter of assurance that the child is being homeschooled. That is the whole of it.
So for most Houston homeschool families, the TEFA account is the only paperwork of the year: an application in the window, receipts through the marketplace, and a record of what was bought. That is a modest burden for $2,000, but it is a different habit than homeschooling in Texas has required before. Our Houston homeschool funding guide and the $2,000 tier page keep the current rules in one place.
Where Houston sits in the statewide picture
As of the state's late-July district file, 19,858 students across 47 Greater Houston districts were funded: 3,327 in Houston ISD, 2,024 in Fort Bend ISD, 1,596 in Cypress-Fairbanks, 1,297 in Conroe and 1,156 in Katy. Statewide the Comptroller reported 101,600 students awarded as of August 13, with more than 100,000 still on the 2026-27 waitlist. Roughly four in five participants live in households below 200% of the federal poverty level, and nearly one in four has a documented disability.
Demand, in short, is far ahead of the roughly $1 billion the Legislature committed in year one. If you are waiting, the $2,000 tier is worth understanding now rather than in February, because it is the option that stays open longest and the one most likely to be available to a family who joins late. Price your year honestly first — our TEFA calculator does the arithmetic across tiers — and check the Houston waitlist page before you assume the full award is out of reach.
What to do between now and the next window
Join the state interest list so you are notified when 2027-28 dates are published; no dates have been announced yet. Decide on setting before you apply, because that choice locks. Keep a running list of the providers you would actually use, with their registration status confirmed, so that an award does not sit unspent. And if your child has an IEP, get it current with the district now — the add-on is tied to the IEP on file, and it is the one part of the program where paperwork done in the fall changes the number in the spring.
Sources
- Texas Education Freedom Accounts - Families
- TEFA Parent Application Guide (PDF)
- More than 5,000 new awards issued to waitlisted TEFA students
- Comptroller Don Huffines Announces 100,000 Students Receiving Texas Education Freedom Accounts
- Comptroller Don Huffines Reports Record-Setting Demand for Education Freedom in Texas
- Texas Education Agency - Home Schooling
- Texas Comptroller Fiscal Notes: Education Savings Accounts
- Texas Education Freedom Accounts Draws Nearly 275,000 Student Applicants in First Year, The Texan