Contact Gov. Greg Abbott
Contact Sen. Brandon Creighton
Contact Rep. Brad Buckley
Contact Rep. Keith Self
Contact Rep. Keresa Richardson
Three McKinney elementary schools are closing. The politicians responsible took tens of millions of dollars from billionaires who want to privatize your child's education — and then voted to make it happen.
McKinney ISD voted to permanently close three elementary schools. These are real schools with real kids, real teachers, and real communities — being shut down because state lawmakers chose billionaire donors over public education.
Closing Fall 2026
Closing Fall 2026
Closing Fall 2026
McKinney ISD cited declining enrollment and stagnant state funding as the causes. What they didn't say loudly enough: state lawmakers have deliberately underfunded public schools for decades — and just passed a law that will drain even more money away starting in Fall 2026, the exact same year these schools close.
A "school voucher" sounds innocent — parents get a choice, right? Here's what it actually means for McKinney ISD and every Texas public school:
The state sends McKinney ISD roughly $10,000–$11,000 per year to educate your child. The district uses that money for teachers, buildings, buses, and programs.
Under the new law, any family can receive ~$10,300–$10,900 per year in government funds to spend on private school tuition instead — $1 billion in taxpayer money was allocated for this.
Every student who leaves takes their per-pupil funding with them. But the school's fixed costs don't shrink — the building still needs heat, the buses still run, the staff still needs to be paid.
McKinney ISD is already down 4,000 students. When the voucher program launches in Fall 2026 — the same day these schools are supposed to close — that number will grow, and so will the deficit.
The voucher program officially launches Fall 2026–27 — the exact same year McKinney closes three schools. This is not a coincidence. It is the predictable consequence of deliberate policy choices.
This didn't happen overnight. A network of billionaires and ideological organizations spent 30 years and hundreds of millions of dollars systematically working to destroy public education in Texas. Every failed attempt made the next push harder and more ruthless.
This policy was not a grassroots movement. It was a decades-long, well-funded campaign by some of the wealthiest people in America — people whose children have never attended, and will never attend, a Texas public school.
Yass made what was described as the largest single political donation in Texas history — $6 million to Greg Abbott in January 2024 — explicitly to fund the primary purge of Republicans who had blocked vouchers. He is not a Texas resident. He has no children in Texas schools. He is a Wall Street billionaire buying Texas education policy with his personal fortune.
His Club for Growth PAC spent an additional $8 million on ads targeting anti-voucher Republican incumbents in Texas. The result: 9 legislators who represented YOU were removed from office so they could be replaced with politicians who would vote his way.
Dunn has been the most consistent Texas-based funder of the voucher movement, channeling tens of millions into TPPF, pro-voucher PACs, and primary campaigns against any Republican who dared vote for public schools. Together with the Wilks brothers, he co-funds Defend Texas Liberty PAC — the main vehicle for punishing Republicans who protect public education.
The Wilks brothers made their fortune in hydraulic fracturing and have spent it reshaping Texas politics in the image of their Christian nationalist beliefs — including the wholesale privatization of public education. They share control of Defend Texas Liberty PAC with Tim Dunn, which spent $3.7 million in the 2021 governor's race alone.
Betsy DeVos built the American Federation for Children specifically to dismantle public education nationally. Her family's AFC Victory Fund targeted 20 Republican primary races in Texas — opposing legislators who had voted against vouchers and funding their pro-voucher challengers. The DeVos strategy: if legislators won't vote for privatization, replace the legislators.
The Walmart family has funneled millions into For the Children PAC and other pro-charter, pro-voucher organizations in Texas since 2010, providing a continuous stream of funding to dismantle the public school system that educates the same workers their corporation relies upon.
Leininger is the original architect of this campaign. He co-founded TPPF in 1989 to provide ideological justification for privatizing Texas education. When legislators opposed him in 2006, he spent $2.5 million trying to remove them — a playbook Abbott and Yass would refine and supercharge 18 years later.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation — the main policy organization behind school vouchers — described public schools in a fundraising letter as holding students "captive" to "Marxist and sexual indoctrination." This is what the billionaires funding this effort think about McKinney's teachers and schools.
These are the elected officials who either voted for this law, signed it, or represent McKinney in Washington. Their names, their roles, their votes.
Abbott made school vouchers his singular obsession. When the legislature repeatedly said no — reflecting the will of Texas voters — he called four special sessions, then spent over $12 million in campaign funds (largely from billionaire Jeff Yass) to oust nine Republican legislators who had voted against vouchers. He replaced them with compliant politicians who would do what their donors demanded. He signed SB 2 on May 2, 2025.
Money received from voucher donors: $10.25M+ from Jeff Yass alone. Millions more from Tim Dunn, the Wilks brothers, and the DeVos network.
As Chair of the Senate Education Committee, Creighton wrote the bill. He has been the primary legislative instrument for the billionaire voucher network in the Texas Senate. He framed a system that funnels public money to private schools with minimal accountability as "education freedom."
Buckley managed the voucher bill in the House and shepherded it through a chamber that had killed similar bills four times in 2023 alone — but now had nine of its opponents removed by Abbott's donor-funded purge.
Rep. Keith Self represents McKinney and most of Collin County in the US Congress. While school vouchers are a state issue (SB 2 is Texas state law), Self represents the same Republican political machine that enacted this policy. Federal education policy decisions — including potential national voucher programs — run through representatives like Self.
Contact Rep. Self: Let him know how defunding public schools in Collin County affects real families.
Richardson is the Texas State Representative for House District 61 — covering McKinney, Frisco, and Celina. She is the legislator who represents the families whose schools are now closing. She took office in January 2025 and voted YES on SB 2, the $1 billion voucher law that directly pressures districts like McKinney ISD.
As a Texas state legislator, Richardson earns a base salary of $7,200 per year plus a $221/day per diem during session — a deliberately low salary set to make the job part-time. Outside the legislature she is CEO of The Lawton Group, a DFW-area trade services company.
"No one knows their child better than the parent. We want parents to be able to choose the environment that's best for that child."
What she did not say: every dollar that follows a child to a private school is a dollar subtracted from McKinney ISD — the same district now closing three schools in her own backyard. When asked about the closures, Richardson made no public statement.
While state legislators voted yes and moved on, it was McKinney ISD's own board and superintendent who had to face the community and announce the closures:
"Public funds should go to public schools. We simply cannot continue down this path with such limited funding."
"State leadership created this monster — local districts are experiencing the repercussions."
"I hoped this day would never come. Unfortunately, it is here."
In the Senate, only one Republican voted against SB 2: Sen. Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville), who represents a rural East Texas district. He said publicly: his community has no private schools nearby. Vouchers don't help his constituents — they only hurt them by draining public school funding. The billionaires had no leverage over him. He voted his conscience. He was the exception.
Texas Senate Vote — February 2025
Texas House Vote — April 2025
Here's the cruelest part: the private schools receiving $1 billion in your tax dollars are not required to meet the same standards as public schools. Investigative reporting by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune found systemic self-dealing and conflicts of interest at dozens of schools likely to receive voucher funding.
What investigators found at schools likely to receive voucher money:
$5M+ in contracts awarded to a construction firm owned by a board member (2017–2021). If this were a public school, it would be a felony.
$465K for landscaping and $1.2M for printed materials paid to board trustees. Zero transparency required. Zero legal consequence.
Issued $100,000+ personal loans to their own administrators — a practice explicitly prohibited at public schools.
ProPublica and the Texas Tribune identified 60+ instances of nepotism, self-dealing, and conflicts of interest at 27 private schools likely to receive voucher funding — before the program even launched.
"It's frankly astonishing to me that anyone would propose the massive sort of spending...with, at best, minimal accountability."
"The public system is not always perfect, but when it's not perfect, we see it...That kind of transparency doesn't exist in private schools."
Your tax dollars — the same money that was funding McKinney ISD until it couldn't keep these schools open — are now being redirected to private institutions with no requirement to be accountable to you, the public, or your child. The billionaires who pushed for this don't send their children to these private schools either. This program exists to generate profit and enforce ideology, not to educate children.
The people who did this are elected. They can be voted out. The policy they passed can be repealed. But only if you and your neighbors refuse to let it stand.
Tell them directly: you know what they voted for, you know who funded them, and you will vote accordingly. Find your reps at capitol.texas.gov
Self represents McKinney in Congress (TX-03). Contact his office and put him on record about federal education funding and voucher expansion.
Abbott purged nine legislators in Republican primaries, where turnout is under 10%. That's where this was decided. Low turnout is how billionaires win.
Board members are directly accountable to you. Demand they fight for state funding and push back on the policy decimating their budget.
The billionaires spent $200+ million to make this happen. The only thing that can fight that is an informed, mobilized community.
These closures are the direct consequence of a 30-year, billionaire-funded campaign to destroy public education in Texas. The politicians who enabled it are counting on your silence.
