{"id":295,"date":"2026-09-11T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dwts-elimination.myftp.biz\/?p=295"},"modified":"2026-09-11T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:00:00","slug":"vouchers-promise-students-with-disabilities-a-path-to-private-school-parents-say-thats-not-the-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwts-elimination.myftp.biz\/?p=295","title":{"rendered":"Vouchers Promise Students With Disabilities a Path to Private School. Parents Say That\u2019s Not the Reality."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reporting Highlights<\/h3>\n
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Toehold Strategy:<\/strong> Lawmakers created voucher programs for children with disabilities as part of a strategy to pave the way for today\u2019s much larger programs open to all students.<\/li>\n
Closed Doors:<\/strong> Unlike public schools, private ones generally aren\u2019t required to educate students with disabilities. They often don\u2019t.<\/li>\n
Few Choices:<\/strong> In Florida, home to the nation\u2019s largest voucher programs, we found that more than half of private schools say they do not serve students with any type of disabilities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
It\u2019s after 6 p.m. by the time Angela Johnson hurries home from work. Her 12-year-old daughter, Amelia, is at their house outside of Pensacola, Florida, with a nurse trained to care for medically fragile children. Amelia, who was born with a rare genetic anomaly, has endured many surgeries and requires a brain shunt and a feeding tube.<\/p>\n
The nurse starts caring for Amelia as soon as a bus from the public school drops her off. Johnson loves much about the school. But as a physical therapist, she also recognizes its limitations. The district\u2019s physical and occupational therapists have to travel from school to school. The classroom teacher can become overburdened.<\/p>\n
For all of Amelia\u2019s life, Johnson has had to fight for the education and the school resources her daughter is entitled to receive under federal law. It has exhausted her.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, she thought she\u2019d found a better option for Amelia when she learned Florida has a state-funded voucher program for children with disabilities. She jumped at the promise of \u201cschool choice.\u201d The program, the largest of its kind in the country, channels taxpayer dollars into accounts that parents can use to pay for private school tuition and other education expenses.<\/p>\n
Johnson envisioned a private school with smaller classes and more one-on-one time with trained staff, a place where she didn\u2019t have to battle for every minute of therapy her child required. She imagined Amelia learning to cut a straight line and to write her name.<\/p>\nIn her bedroom, Amelia looks for a book to read with her mom, Angela Johnson.<\/span> Zaydee Sanchez\/ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
In 2024, Amelia was awarded about $10,500 from the program. Thrilled, Johnson embarked on a weekslong hunt for a private school.<\/p>\n
She began scouring school websites, most of which said nothing about services for children with disabilities. She started calling schools, first an upscale Christian one nearby with a strong reputation. It had no nurse trained to care for medically fragile children, so she reached out to several other schools. At first, some said they could help \u2014 until Johnson explained that her daughter had a feeding tube, that she couldn\u2019t yet hold a pencil correctly and needed assistance toileting. Then they all said no.<\/p>\n
Johnson couldn\u2019t find a single one that provided nurses equipped to care for her daughter\u2019s medical needs. Or teachers trained to educate nonverbal children. Or even a bus ride home.<\/p>\n
Therein lies the catch in \u201cschool choice\u201d for children like Amelia. Unlike public schools, private ones generally aren\u2019t required to educate students with disabilities. And they often don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
The choice wasn\u2019t hers, Johnson realized. It was the schools\u2019. The vouchers \u201care basically designed to make you go to private school,\u201d Johnson said, \u201cbut my kid can\u2019t access private school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson returned the money to the state, along with a very stern email.<\/p>\n
Voucher programs and the private schools they increasingly fund have proliferated across the country. Yet those schools often reject children with disabilities \u2014 the very kids who were used to help sell early voucher programs to lawmakers and the public \u2014 for having needs that are too costly, complex or disruptive. That leaves those children with few options beyond the public schools. And as public schools lose enrollment as a result of more and more voucher use, they lose resources that would benefit children who remain, including those with disabilities.<\/p>\n
About 3 million school-age children with disabilities live in states with universal voucher eligibility. Florida, one of those states, illustrates how the promise of school choice can be empty for these children.<\/p>\nAfter walking around the block, Amelia removes her leg braces, which can be uncomfortable. Her mother, Angela, encourages her to wear them and walk at least once a day.<\/span> Zaydee Sanchez\/ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
When children are approved for education savings accounts, a voucher-style program like the one Florida uses, states often put public money into accounts parents can use to pay expenses like tuition. If families can\u2019t find a private school and don\u2019t use the money, it may roll over to another year or, depending on the state, get returned.<\/p>\n
About 8% of the $1.7 billion Florida distributed last year through its voucher program for disabled children was returned because recipients \u2014 kids like Amelia \u2014 were enrolled in public school instead, according to data from the nonprofit that disburses most of the funds. By comparison, just 1% of money in the state\u2019s program open to all students was returned for the same reason.<\/p>\n
Florida is one of three states where ProPublica obtained data allowing us to make such comparisons.<\/p>\n
Louisiana, which launched an education savings account program in the 2025-26 school year, delivered $43.1 million to parent-controlled accounts. Overall, 6% was returned because the families didn\u2019t spend the money, state data shows. But among students with disabilities, that rate was far higher at 30%.<\/p>\n
In Texas, data is still coming in for the first year of its $1 billion voucher program. But so far, students with disabilities are opting out of using the money at slightly higher rates than all other students.<\/p>\n
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\n\tHave you had trouble finding a school or using a voucher-style program? Do you have concerns about schools \u2014 public or private \u2014 in your area? Help us understand how families across the country are navigating their school options.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Though families return the money for multiple reasons, many have indicated they did so because they couldn\u2019t find suitable private schools that would enroll their students.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamilies are at the mercy of the schools \u2014 and schools choosing their kid \u2014 versus the other way around,\u201d said Chris Roe, director of state policy at the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a national association working on behalf of children with disabilities.<\/p>\n
Today, at least 18 states have voucher-style programs with universal eligibility or are phasing them in. Florida eclipses them all. More than a half-million Florida schoolchildren \u2014 roughly 1 in 6 \u2014 use a voucher today. When lawmakers opened the state\u2019s voucher program to all children in 2023, two-thirds of the newly enrolled students were already attending private schools.<\/p>\n
Yet private schooling often remains out of reach for children like Amelia, the children lawmakers once used to gain a toehold for future voucher expansions. They shared disabled children\u2019s compelling stories, named legislation in their honor and created some of the nation\u2019s first statewide voucher programs specifically for these students.<\/p>\n
They started in Florida.<\/p>\nAfter Angela gets home from work, she and Amelia head out to play in the front yard.<\/span> Zaydee Sanchez\/ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Illusion of Choice<\/h3>\n
In 1999, an unassuming man wearing glasses and a lavender tie stood before his colleagues in the Florida Senate to champion a bill that would change the trajectory of American education. John McKay, a Republican, wanted to give parents of children with disabilities a chunk of taxpayer money to pay for private school tuition.<\/p>\n
McKay pointed to his own family\u2019s experience. Public schools had failed to meet the needs of his daughter, who had significant learning disabilities. He and his wife could afford to send their daughter to a private boarding school, but not all parents had that option.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re alienating parents,\u201d McKay argued. \u201cI\u2019ve been alienated by the public system when I was told I didn\u2019t have any choices with regard to my children.\u201d<\/p>\n
The McKay Scholarships began as a pilot program \u2014 the nation\u2019s first voucher system specifically for students with disabilities. Lawmakers soon expanded it, creating the nation\u2019s first statewide voucher program for this group of children. Ohio followed Florida\u2019s lead, then Utah and Arizona and Georgia and, later, Louisiana and Oklahoma and others.<\/p>\n
Across the statehouses, politicians stressed one sentiment: choice. Parents would no longer be tethered to their local public schools and could choose where to send their children.<\/p>\n
Georgia\u2019s sponsor said he sought \u201cto give any disabled student whose parents are dissatisfied with their assigned public school the ability to attend the public or private school that best fits their needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can just take the scholarship and go to private school,\u201d an Oklahoma lawmaker pledged.<\/p>\n
The programs have since helped thousands of children with disabilities move to private schools, including those designed to meet their unique needs. But for many children, especially those with more severe disabilities or who live in areas where few if any private schools operate, the promises of choice were never realistic.<\/p>\n
Some legislators backing those early programs said they recognized this problem but argued that any children helped by the new options made the effort worthwhile. And they hoped that competition fueled by money flowing into private schools would create a more robust school marketplace in the long run, one that would accommodate students with special needs.<\/p>\nAmelia loves playing on her swing outside.<\/span> Zaydee Sanchez\/ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
In 2021, West Virginia lawmakers adopted their first and only foray into vouchers, an education savings program that they have since opened to all students. To get the bill passed, some legislators made familiar promises to disabled children \u2014 even though the state has only a handful of schools that specifically say they will serve even the least-intensive of children\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur kids can\u2019t go to a private school,\u201d said Christy Black, an advocate for Disability Rights of West Virginia who has a daughter with Down syndrome. \u201cI called every private school from Huntington to Charleston because that\u2019s as far as we could drive her and work. But no one would accept her because she has a cognitive disability.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than half of Utah\u2019s counties have no private schools that take its vouchers for students with disabilities. In Georgia, 71% of counties have none. And in Louisiana last year, among about 350 private schools, only 14 reported enrolling a single child with a disability. Eight of those admitted five or fewer such students.<\/p>\n
Even in Florida, with its urban centers and roughly $5 billion voucher programs, ProPublica found that more than a dozen counties have no private schools that serve kids with disabilities or have only one school with limited offerings. Our analysis of state data also shows that more than half of Florida\u2019s private schools say they do not serve students with any type of disability.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s touted that this program is an equalizer, and then people have choice,\u201d said Jinny Kim, managing attorney at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, a national civil rights and policy nonprofit that advocates for people with disabilities. \u201cBut then if you really look at the details, it\u2019s not actually how it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anxious about her daughter\u2019s upcoming transition to middle school, Atlanta-area mother Marguerite Lane decided to explore private schools that take the state\u2019s voucher. Her daughter, who has autism, does well academically but can be very sensitive and struggle in bigger classrooms without enough behavioral support.<\/p>\n
Lane applied to and visited several private schools and found a small, arts-infused one that said it would accept some children with learning challenges. She thought it would serve her daughter well, but then she opened an email from the enrollment director.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t believe we can support her needs and help her thrive in this class,\u201d it read, \u201cand we also don\u2019t want to compromise the educational experience of the other students.\u201d The last part hurt most. Lane thought, \u201cGod forbid the other children learn empathy.\u201d<\/p>\nMarguerite Lane and her daughter, Penelope, at home in Atlanta. Penelope likes to play piano and has a pet cat, Gatsby.<\/span> Alyssa Pointer for ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Toehold Strategy\u00a0<\/h3>\n
As politicians debated those first voucher programs for children with disabilities, a common refrain echoed across statehouse chambers: The plans were just small programs for a specific group of students.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very limited scholarship,\u201d a Utah representative assured colleagues in 2004. \u201cThis really is about special needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not, as I heard some of you say to me, the beginning of vouchers. No, ladies and gentlemen, it\u2019s a program to help a group of students that need our help,\u201d a Georgia House member told colleagues in 2007.<\/p>\n
Behind the political scenes, a different message spread.<\/p>\n
As Arizona adopted its first program for children with disabilities in 2006, Clint Bolick wrote an essay entitled \u201cToe-Hold Strategies.\u201d Bolick, who was then president of the advocacy group Alliance for School Choice, is now a justice on the Arizona Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Voucher advocates, he wrote, were \u201cacting smarter.\u201d Rather than take on powerful teachers unions directly, they were pushing smaller programs geared toward specific students whose needs were harder for politicians to oppose. \u201cThe strategy makes sense from a moral perspective, for it focuses assistance on the neediest schoolchildren,\u201d he added. \u201cIt also works politically, because choice begets choice: Once the Rubicon is crossed and legislators vote to adopt a school choice program \u2014 no matter how small or targeted \u2014 it becomes easier to support a new one, or expand the old one, the next time around.\u201d<\/p>\n
By 2011, a half dozen states had launched voucher programs specifically for students with disabilities. At a \u201cschool choice\u201d conference that year, Howie Beigelman sat on a panel that discussed the strategy. At the time, he was deputy director of public policy for the advocacy arm of the Orthodox Union, a prominent Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization. He offered guidance to those who might want to get into vouchers.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpecial needs is a very easy way to get into this business,\u201d Beigelman said. \u201cAnyone, no matter how partisan they are, it\u2019s very hard to say special needs is not where people need \u2018special\u2019 education.\u201d (He recently told ProPublica via email that this was his opinion and he had \u201cnever seen anything \u2018intentional\u2019 about using special needs scholarships for anything more than what they are plainly for: helping educate children with special needs.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n
\nAngela reads a book to Amelia, emphasizing each word and encouraging Amelia to repeat the words aloud with her.<\/span> Zaydee Sanchez\/ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nPenelope used to bring stuffed toys to elementary school to help relieve stress, but as a middle schooler she has switched to a fidget spinner.<\/span> Alyssa Pointer for ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
Shortly after vouchers for disabled children spread to Arkansas in 2016, the University of Arkansas posted on its website an essay by Sarah McKenzie, executive director of the college\u2019s Office for Education Policy. \u201cSpecial education private school choice programs are often seen as a \u2018foot in the door\u2019 for school choice laws,\u201d she wrote. \u201cOnce some success has been shown to the public, more laws can be passed to expand these programs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, following those wins, lawmakers across the country opened the floodgates, often to all or most comers, expanding voucher-style programs into a $10.6 billion tide of public money.<\/p>\n
Today, two-thirds of states have some kind of voucher-style program on the books. These programs mostly serve a very different population of students than the early ones did. Most current voucher recipients don\u2019t have disabilities, nor do they need to hunt for a private school that will enroll them. They were already in private schools when they tapped this new windfall.<\/p>\n
North Carolina state Sen. Lisa Grafstein, a Democrat and a civil rights lawyer who advocates for people with disabilities, opposes her state\u2019s voucher system, which is now open to all students. \u201cThe thing that genuinely infuriates me,\u201d she said, \u201cis when people with disabilities are used as pawns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Failure to Address Access<\/h3>\n
Two decades after states began adopting vouchers for children with disabilities, lawmakers have done little to improve access to private schools for them \u2014 even as they have created programs open to all comers. Most legislatures haven\u2019t required private schools that take this public money to accept even a few kids with such needs. Nor have they created effective incentives to help operators open more specialized private schools, which can be costly to run.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s largely because one of the driving forces behind vouchers is the goal of keeping rules to a minimum so private schools will take the public money.<\/p>\nAmelia plays a card game with her parents, who encourage her to repeat the names of the animals pictured on the cards.<\/span> Zaydee Sanchez\/ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\u201cGetting the government involved in private schools isn\u2019t the answer,\u201d said former West Virginia Delegate Amy Summers, a Republican who played a central role in creating her state\u2019s universal voucher-like program. She thinks competition for students will prompt private and public schools to better serve children with disabilities.<\/p>\n
Another key advocate in West Virginia was Republican state Sen. Patricia Puertas Rucker. She homeschooled her two children with disabilities, including a now-adult daughter who she said came home from public school with bite marks and bruises.<\/p>\n
Rucker hopes that the state\u2019s voucher program will give more families a way to foot tuition bills or band together to create small schools called microschools. But she regrets that her colleagues approved the payments without additional money for students with disabilities, as some states offer. That extra money could help families afford the higher tuition often charged by specialized schools \u2014 and make it more viable for operators to open them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very expensive to have all this special equipment and to even build the buildings for children that have very specialized special needs,\u201d Rucker said.<\/p>\n
But beyond raising those payments, she doesn\u2019t think the state should do anything to cajole or require private schools to enroll children with disabilities. \u201cThe minute you start doing that, you are basically disincentivizing private schools from participating, and then you\u2019re denying parents. I do not want to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that private schools haven\u2019t opened to take advantage of the voucher windfall. They in fact have been proliferating in recent years. And some of these new schools specifically welcome children with disabilities. But most of them do not.<\/p>\n
The Pain of Rejection<\/h3>\nDiavonni Jordan and her son Jamir Souders at home in Dallas, Georgia. Private schools rejected Jamir, who has ADHD, explaining that they could not support his needs.<\/span> Alyssa Pointer for ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Parents described private school rejections as \u201cinsulting\u201d and \u201cheartbreaking,\u201d especially when school personnel have met the children. But families don\u2019t always need to apply or even call the schools to get a denial. Some websites or handbooks make it clear.<\/p>\n
One small Baptist academy in rural Georgia invites applicants to \u201cjoin our family\u201d but declares in its handbook that it isn\u2019t equipped to educate children with learning disabilities or attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder. \u201cIf such students are accepted in our school, it is up to the parents to provide extra services other than what the classroom teachers would do in the confines of the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2023, Taylor Cordes, a former special education teacher, embarked on what she calls her \u201cpersonal passion project\u201d to see how many private schools in her home state of North Carolina post such clear rejections. She dug into every handbook she could find for 660 schools and found that only about a third of them indicated they would accept students with even limited disabilities. More than 1 in 10 declared they would not serve such students, she said.<\/p>\n
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\n\tHave you had trouble finding a school or using a voucher-style program? Do you have concerns about schools \u2014 public or private \u2014 in your area? Help us understand how families across the country are navigating their school options.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Many families endure deeply hurtful personal rejections in the search for education. Private schools typically decide who to enroll after meeting parents and their children, as Diavonni Jordan, an Atlanta-area mother, learned. Her now-8-year-old son, Jamir Souders, has ADHD. When he was suspended multiple times from his public school and started to get into fights, she searched for an option with smaller class sizes where she thought he would focus and learn better.<\/p>\n
A single mother of two, Jordan applied to a local Christian school, then took time off work to visit it. She filled with hope as she toured the well-kept campus and spoke to its friendly staff. But within a week, she opened an email from the school. \u201cThe support that we could give in our 1st grade would not be enough for him this year,\u201d it read. The school\u2019s program was small, ill-equipped to provide for his needs, it added.<\/p>\n
Jordan expanded her search to other traditional private schools, even when they would mean longer drives for her. She applied to five and toured two. But the verdicts never changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately \u2014 it doesn\u2019t look like we would be a good fit for your family,\u201d another Christian school wrote. Jordan wondered what child constituted a \u201cgood fit\u201d for the school and felt the heartbreak of knowing it wasn\u2019t her son. Perhaps, she thought, she will homeschool Jamir in the future. But for now, with a new school year upon them, he remains in public school.<\/p>\nJordan and Jamir read a book together in his bedroom.<\/span> Alyssa Pointer for ProPublica<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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