If Texas Excludes Islamic Schools, It Isn’t School Choice

When Texas joined the ranks of states with private school choice programs last year, education freedom advocates were thrilled — it was the biggest prize yet. When the state smashed application records at the opening of enrollment, there was yet more rejoicing. But now, after the triumphal opening of applications, choice in Texas is trending from a victory for freedom to a cautionary tale of exclusion.

It looks like Islamic schools are in the crosshairs.

Here is the situation: Numerous Texas private schools, including several Islamic institutions, are accredited by the education company Cognia. According to a request for guidance from Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock to State Attorney General Ken Paxton, some Cognia-accredited schools “are based at an address that have hosted publicly advertised events organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).”

Last year Gov. Greg Abbott designated CAIR a “foreign terrorist organization” and “transnational criminal organization.” Hancock wanted to know from Paxton whether suspect schools should be disqualified from receiving money via Texas Education Freedom Accounts.

Paxton started his reply with a rebuke — it’s the comptroller’s job to decide which schools are ineligible, not the attorney general’s — then said that Hancock would be obligated to keep money from organizations he determined were supporting terrorism or criminal activity.

Apparently, Hancock concluded many applicants fit that definition. Hancock has not released a list of excluded schools, but in a cross-check this month of Cognia-accredited Texas schools on the Private School Review website, the state’s site for finding Freedom Account-eligible schools, and other searches, it appears all Islamic schools are excluded. Accordingly, a father has sued the state because the Cognia-accredited institution his children attend — the Houston Qur’an Academy Spring — is not on the list of eligible schools. In addition to the Cognia connection, the suit suggests the school hosted a “Know Your Rights” event connected to CAIR.

At the center of Hancock’s decision is a gaping hole: CAIR has not been found guilty of supporting terrorism. It was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal case concerning terrorism stemming from the 1990s, but CAIR was not charged with a crime, and a court eventually ruled that their identification should not have been made public.

Earlier this month, a federal court blocked Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida from designating CAIR a terrorist organization, and the federal government has never so designated it.

CAIR has not been legally charged, much less found guilty, of supporting terrorism or criminal activity, and on simple innocent-until-proven-guilty grounds, the government should not punish anyone who works with them.

The scope of Hancock’s letter is, concerningly, even broader than just the exclusion of schools formally connected to CAIR. It hinges on attending any Islamic school accredited by Cognia — a state-recognized accreditor — because someCognia-accredited schools were at addresses at which a CAIR public event was held.

Hancock’s letter does nothing to stop terrorism. It is exclusion by even tangential association. It also violates a fundamental purpose of school choice: enabling diverse people to access the education they think is best without having to pay once for public schools and a second time for the education they want. Meanwhile, research suggests that Islamic schools tend to produce good American citizens.

“Choice,” then, means very little when whole classes of schools are excluded on the basis of government favor. But any state favoritism violates liberty and equality under the law.

Alas, discrimination in Texas doesn’t just kneecap freedom and equality in the state. By sending the message that school choice means freedom for some but not all, this discrimination threatens educational freedom across the entire U.S. It enables choice opponents nationwide to convincingly declare that choice isn’t really for everyone — only the politically powerful.

Not that choice opponents should get cocky: Public schools do not serve all equally. Think religion is crucial to education? Too bad — hand over your taxes and pay for private education yourself. Assigned to a dysfunctional school? Again, too bad. Your child learns differently from how your public school teaches? Yup — too bad.

Promoting choice is the only way to deliver education consistent with a free, diverse society, a mission public schools have historically failed. If Texas officials decide to dangle freedom in front of families only to later snatch it away, they are subverting liberty. And if they — or school choice supporters elsewhere — invoke “freedom” again, few will believe they mean it.