Mike Rowe

Texas awarded Odyssey a contract worth up to $52 million over four years to manage the School Choice voucher program. And that's not all. The program also allows additional money to be spent on administrative costs outside of that contract. Now, look at the people involved. Odyssey hired Luis Sáenz, who was Abbott's chief of staff for five years. Sáenz then became a lobbyist for Odyssey while Abbott was pushing to get school vouchers passed. Odyssey also brought in two more former Abbott staffers to help promote the program: John Wittman, Abbott's former communications director, and Matthew Hirsch, his former deputy chief of staff. Then there's billionaire Jeff Yass. He contributed $500,000 to an Odyssey-related competition in 2023 and millions of dollars to Abbott's political efforts in 2024. I'm not saying these connections mean something illegal happened, but hmmm... Odyssey gets a multimillion-dollar contract, and there are additional administrative expenses on top of that. So how much money is actually going toward educating children, and how much is going toward running the program, paying contractors, marketing, and other private organizations? Who is keeping track of the money? Who is making sure it's being spent properly? And who's benefiting financially from all of this?