Why some Texas private schools are not accepting school choice vouchers

Applications for the nation's largest school choice program kicked off Wednesday with tens of thousands of families applying for the Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA).

Acting State Comptroller Kelly Hancock said 20,000 families applied in the first three hours of applications opening Wednesday morning, and 75 percent of those who applied were low income and middle-class families.

"The first day was very good," Hancock said. "We got off to a hot start, and everything went smoothly. There were 8,000 folks within the first hour, over 20,000 by noon, and 1,700 schools participating in the program. This is a great thing for Texas, a great opportunity to improve education."

The TEFA is a $1 billion taxpayer-funded program passed by the Texas Legislature last year. It allocates vouchers to qualifying families to help pay for private school expenses like tuition, textbooks and uniforms.

The average student can receive $10,474 dollars per year. A student with disabilities and a completed IEP can receive up to $30,000 a year. A homeschooled student can receive $2,000.

• To see which private schools in North Texas are participating, click here.

Participation in the program is optional for private schools, and many are choosing not to, at least for the first year of the program.

Among them is the Selwyn School in Argyle, which has an enrollment of 140 students and tuition costs of up to $28,000 a year.

Their head of school, Deborah Hof, said there are still too many questions about how the TEFA program will work.

Here is a portion of her interview with CBS News Texas:

Deborah Hof: "Right now, I have no idea how it's going to work, and I'm not willing to take the risk of losing our independence.

"On a more personal level, I worry about the public sector. If we pay taxes for the good of the whole, for police, for fire, for schools, I hate to see money leaving schools when there will be many more children in public than in private. There's a piece of me that also doesn't like the pain it will probably cause the public sector."

Lacey Beasley, CBS News Texas: "This voucher system is taxpayer dollars that's going to private education. Do you find that contradictory?"

Hof: "Yes. If you're a private institution, I don't know that you should depend on public funds. I do have a conflict there. Taking money from the state seems like something I'm not ready to do now, because I really don't know what that entails."

Beasley: "Do you trust the state?"

Hof: "That's a hard question. I mean, I guess my answer is I would prefer that educators make decisions about education, not politicians."

Beasley: "By not partaking in the voucher system, is that going to cause parents to leave Selwyn or stop families from coming to Selwyn?"

Hof: "It might. That's just a decision we must make to be independent."

Beasley: "Does that concern you?"

Hof: "I wouldn't love it. But we must be who we are. Once you start trying to be a little bit of everything, then you're not anything."