# School Freedom Fund [[Club for Growth]]'s formally affiliated super PAC for school choice — the enforcement arm of the voucher movement at the state-legislature level. Registered with the FEC on November 15, 2021 (FEC ID: C00794396), the School Freedom Fund exists to primary-challenge Republican state legislators who vote against voucher bills, then replace them with compliant ones. It is essentially a one-donor operation: [[Jeff Yass]] has provided roughly 90% of its $30M in total receipts since 2023. ## Structure School Freedom Fund is a super PAC (independent expenditure-only committee), meaning it must disclose its donors to the FEC. It is not a 501(c)(4); the "dark money" dimension comes from the broader [[Club for Growth]] ecosystem, which includes a nondisclosing foundation arm. Club for Growth's own website hosts the School Freedom Fund's page and issues press releases under its banner — the affiliation is formal, not merely associative. ## Funding Of approximately $30M raised since 2023, **$27M came from [[Jeff Yass]]** (Susquehanna International Group). Yass also gave $5M separately to a PAC pushing Kentucky's school-choice constitutional amendment (Amendment 2) in 2024, and $4M directly to Texas Governor [[Greg Abbott]]'s campaign in July 2024. The concentration is remarkable: this is a $30M political vehicle controlled almost entirely by a single billionaire's preferences. ## State-Level Interventions The School Freedom Fund's strategy is to flip state legislatures toward enacting or expanding publicly-funded private school voucher programs (Education Savings Accounts): **Tennessee (2024):** Spent $4.5M across the 2024 legislative primary cycle — nearly twice what the Tennessee Republican Caucus itself spent. Targeted anti-voucher legislators including State Rep. Jody Barrett (~$800K against him). Won 5 of 6 primaries entered. Purchased $1M in TV ads ahead of the August 2024 primaries. The spending was directly credited with creating the legislative majority that passed statewide voucher expansion in 2026. **Texas (2024):** Active in targeting anti-voucher Republicans in primaries. The broader pro-voucher coalition spent $14.8M+ in Texas primaries; School Freedom Fund was one of the principal vehicles. Helped elect pro-voucher candidates including Joanne Shofner (over Rep. Travis Clardy) and Shelley Luther (over Rep. Reggie Smith). Texas subsequently passed a universal ESA program. **Kentucky (2024):** Yass funded a $5M parallel PAC supporting Amendment 2, a school-choice constitutional amendment on the November 2024 ballot. The amendment failed. **West Virginia (2026):** Among three outside groups fueling approximately $3M in spending on statehouse races linked to the Hope Scholarship voucher program, with School Freedom Fund spending $900K+. ## Relationship to DeVos Network [[Betsy DeVos]] and the DeVos family operate the [[American Federation for Children]] (AFC), the other major national school-choice vehicle. AFC is a 501(c)(4) founded and chaired by DeVos, with $2.5M+ in DeVos family contributions representing about 36% of AFC Action Fund receipts. The two networks are **parallel actors** — overlapping goals, sometimes active in the same states, but operating through different donor pipelines (Yass/Club for Growth for SFF vs. DeVos family for AFC) with no documented formal organizational tie. ## The Enforcement Model School Freedom Fund's political logic is punitive: identify Republican legislators who vote against vouchers, fund primary challengers against them, and use the threat of future primaries to enforce discipline on the remaining caucus. This is the same model [[Club for Growth]] pioneered for tax and spending policy, now extended to education. The result is that a single billionaire ([[Jeff Yass]]) can effectively set the legislative agenda on school choice across multiple states by making the cost of opposition — a well-funded primary — higher than the cost of compliance. ## See Also - [[Club for Growth]] — Parent organization - [[Jeff Yass]] — Dominant funder (90% of receipts) - [[Betsy DeVos]] — Parallel voucher network via AFC - [[American Federation for Children]] — DeVos family's school-choice vehicle - [[Dick Uihlein]] — Major Club for Growth donor ($69M+ lifetime) - [[Americans for Prosperity]] — Koch network school-choice overlap