Which States Have Private School Choice?

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Programs that direct public money toward private schools of a family’s choosing or family accounts that can cover any education expenses outside the public school system are proliferating.

Parents say they have sought out these programs as a way to deliver an education customized to their children’s unique needs. Politicians championing them say they represent a lifeline for students trapped in underperforming schools. Critics argue the programs deprive public schools of much-needed resources and point out that many children now benefiting from private school choice funds were already attending private schools beforehand. Several private school choice programs are facing lawsuits alleging that they violate state constitutions.

Students taking advantage of private school choice represent a small fraction of the nation’s total K-12 population, but the numbers signing up for new state programs have sometimes exceeded projections.

This tracker provides a concise yet comprehensive snapshot of the private school choice landscape on a rolling basis. In our Policies to Watch section, we highlight states where new private school choice programs or other notable private school choice policy changes are under consideration. Our glossary defines common terms in discussions about school choice.

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have at least one private school choice program, according to an Education Week analysis. Of those, 15 states have at least one private school choice program that's universally accessible to K-12 students in the state.

20 States have tax-credit scholarships

16 States have education savings accounts

10 States and the District of Columbia have vouchers

2 States have tax-credit education savings accounts

5 States have direct tax credits

States with at least one universal private school choice program

States with one or more private school choice program

Education Savings Account (ESA)

Education savings accounts provide public per-pupil funds—often a percentage of per-student state funding—to families with children who don’t attend public schools that they can use to pay for private school tuition or other education expenses, such as tutoring and homeschooling supplies. Some states restrict ESAs or specific ESA programs within the state to students with disabilities, students attending schools with poor performance, and/or students from low-income families. Recently, more states have begun adopting universal ESAs, which all families can access regardless of income, disability status, or any other qualifying factor. ESA funds are generally given directly to families, often in the form of debit cards with restrictions on how the money can be spent. While ESAs and vouchers are often used interchangeably, what sets ESAs apart from vouchers are that they can be used for a wide array of education expenses, not just private school tuition. (See EdWeek's 2023 explainer on ESAs.)

Voucher

School vouchers describe public funds that families can use at private schools of their choice, including those that are religious, to subsidize the cost of student tuition. Many vouchers are restricted to students with disabilities, students attending poor-performing schools, and students from low-income families, but some states have vouchers that are available to any student. (See EdWeek's 2017 explainer on vouchers.)

Tax-Credit Scholarship

Tax-credit scholarship programs provide scholarships to families that they can use at private schools of their choice, including those that are religious. The scholarships most commonly come from state-authorized nonprofit organizations, which issue the scholarships out of donations that they receive from businesses or individual taxpayers who receive tax credits for those donations. Eligibility can be limited based on family income, disability status, or other factors, or it can be universal. (See EdWeek's 2024 explainer on tax-credit scholarships.)

Tax-Credit Education Savings Account

Tax-Credit ESAs are a less common form of ESA through which families receive a designated, per-pupil amount from a state-authorized nonprofit organization that administers the account. Families can use the funds to cover any educational expense, including private school tuition, tutoring, or homeschooling costs. Businesses and individual taxpayers receive tax credits for donations to those nonprofit organizations. (See EdWeek's 2024 explainer on tax-credit education savings accounts.)

Direct Tax Credit

Some states offer tax credits directly to parents to defray the cost of private school tuition or home-school expenses. Such credits are still among the rarer forms of private school choice, but they have become gradually more common as Oklahoma and Idaho most recently have adopted new tax-credit programs. States' existing tax-credit programs have varying levels of generosity. Some states offer tax deductions instead of direct credits to defray private-school tuition costs. EdWeek doesn't track these deduction programs, as they tend to cover a smaller portion of private-school costs than other forms of private-school choice. (See EdWeek's 2024 explainer on states' use of tax credits to fund private school choice.)

Universal school choice

Private school choice programs that are open to all families regardless of disability status, income, location, or public school performance. Universal policies have become more popular in recent years.

School choice

State and, to a lesser extent, federal policies and programs that allow families to send students to schools that they wouldn’t be assigned to attend in the traditional public school system. This can include charter schools; magnet schools; traditional public schools outside of a family’s assigned school zone, district, or town; homeschooling; and private schools, including those that are religiously affiliated.

Private school choice

Policies and programs that direct state and other public funds to private schools, including religious options, where families can choose to enroll their children.

Public school choice

Policies and programs that allow families to attend public schools other than the school to which a child would normally be assigned. These schools include charter schools, magnet schools, as well as traditional public schools where families proactively decide to enroll their children. This EdWeek tracker is focused on private school choice and does not include data on public school choice programs.

Magnet schools

Public schools with a specific focus, such as STEM, performing arts, or career and technical education, that are free to attend and open to all students in a district. Some magnet schools are also open to students outside of a designated district or state and require students to apply to attend.

Charter schools

Schools that receive public funding but typically operate independently of local school districts, with private nonprofits most commonly running them and less often for-profit entities. Districts or state authorizing bodies create contracts, or “charters,” with organizations that want to open charter schools, often for a designated period of time. Charters are tuition-free and are often open to all students in a district or an even broader metro area. However, they tend to have caps on enrollment and decide enrollment based on a lottery system. Because charter schools are a form of public school choice, they are not included in EdWeek’s private school choice tracker. (See EdWeek’s 2018 explainer on charter schools.)

Inter- and intra-district choice

Policies and programs that allow students to attend public schools other than those to which they would normally be assigned. Those schools can be located in the student’s home district but outside of their traditional school zone (intra-district choice) or outside of their home district (inter-district choice). These policies are sometimes referred to as open enrollment.

Policies to watch

An ongoing look at significant private school choice policy development:

The federal government
Indiana
Missouri
Nebraska
New Hampshire
North Dakota
Ohio
South Carolina
Texas
Vermont

The federal government

President-elect Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 29 calling for the U.S. Education Department to develop guidance to states for expanding private school choice.

On the same day, Senate Republicans proposed legislation that would set aside $10 billion annually for a new tax-credit scholarship program open to students in every state whose families earn less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Republicans from both houses are pushing to move the bill forward as part of the annual budget reconciliation process, which would mean they would need a simple majority of votes in favor.

Even before Trump took office, a similar proposal earned majority approval from the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees taxation. Republicans from both houses are pushing to move the bill forward as part of the annual budget reconciliation process, which would mean they would need a simple majority of votes in favor.

On April 1, Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Jim Banks, R-Ind., also introduced a proposal to offer education savings accounts worth $6,000 a year to students whose parents are active-duty military members. Students would need to have attended public school for 100 days during the prior school year in order to participate.

Republicans currently hold 53 of 100 Senate seats and a slim majority in the 435-member House. Even so, a new private school choice program is not guaranteed to pass. Some lawmakers who represent rural districts with few alternatives to public schools may balk on behalf of their constituents.

Georgia

State lawmakers adjourned their session in April without passing two proposals for expanding private school choice: one that would have allowed children of active-duty military members to receive vouchers even if they didn’t previously attend an underperforming public school, and another that would have made the same exemption for children in foster care.

Democrats, meanwhile, didn’t succeed in scaling back investment in the state’s voucher program, even as more students became eligible than some lawmakers intended. The state will invest the legal maximum amount of $141 million in the program for the 2025-26 school year.

Students are currently eligible through the program to receive $6,500 in public ESA funds for next school year if they attend a public school that ranks among the bottom 25 percent in the state according to academic performance metrics.

Indiana

The state house on Feb. 20 approved an annual operating budget that increases investment in the state’s existing school voucher program so that all students are eligible. But the Senate version of the budget, unveiled April 10, would maintain existing funding levels for the program.

Currently, students are eligible for the voucher program if they come from families earning no more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, which means the overwhelming majority of the state’s students are already eligible. Roughly 70,000 students participated this year, costing the state $439 million.

The House budget mirrors the one proposed last month by newly elected Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican. In addition to the voucher expansion, it includes tripling the annual allocation for the state’s limited education savings account offering, from $10 million to $30 million. The program accepts applications from K-12 students with disabilities who previously attended public schools. Roughly 1,000 students use the program for the current school year.

Lawmakers must finalize the state budget by April 29.

Missouri

Lawmakers have until May 16 to pass private school choice legislation this year.

On Feb. 25, the senate education committee voted to approve a new direct tax credit for parents of private school students. Parents would be able to claim any amount that doesn’t exceed the state adequacy target for public school funding as defined in Missouri law--currently $6,375.

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, on April 15 proposed investing $50 million in the state’s existing tax-credit education savings account program. But a senate committee struck that item from its proposed budget a few days later.

Other private school choice legislation, including measures expanding eligibility for the state’s existing tax-credit scholarship program and allowing donors to the tax-credit scholarship program to apply their tax credit to the previous year, have not advanced.

Nebraska

Less than three months after the state’s voters decisively chose to repeal a law that allowed parents of private school students to claim tax credits, lawmakers proposed to revive that exact program. One lawmaker is pushing to designate the program as an appropriation, which would make it immune from being challenged on the ballot.

They’ve also proposed a bill that would bring back the state’s tax-credit scholarship program, which gave tax credits to individuals and corporations that donated to organizations which grant scholarships to private school students.

Another bill calls for creating a private school choice program solely accessible to students in foster care.

New Hampshire

Senate and House lawmakers have voted in favor of removing the income eligibility cap on the state’s education savings account program, which currently restricts eligibility to students from families earning less than 350 percent of the federal poverty level.

The bills aim to expand eligibility for the ESA program to students from families earning less than 400 percent of the federal poverty line starting in the 2025-26 school year, and to all of the state’s students in the 2026-27 school year. The Senate bill imposes a cap of 10,000 students, while the House bill has no participation cap.

Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, meanwhile, has proposed tightening eligibility for the program to students who were previously enrolled in public school. Currently, any private school student can participate, regardless of where they went to school previously.

The state’s legislative session wraps up in early June.

North Dakota

Senate lawmakers have approved two separate bills that would create a new education savings account program.

First, they voted 25-22 on Feb. 21 to approve a bill that would give every K-12 student in the state who attends public school or home school an annual award of $500 a year for educational expenses. Private school students from families earning less than 500 percent of the federal poverty level would receive a $2,000 award. And private school students from families earning less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level would receive $3,500.

Then on April 17, Senate lawmakers voted 27-20 to approve an amended version of a House bill that would give $20 million in annual ESA awards only to private school students. Awards would range from $1,000 to $4,000 based on income level. All K-12 students in the state would be eligible.

Michelle Axtman, the senator who championed the ESA offering for all students, voted to approve the program that only supplies funds to private school students, but she still wants to see the more expansive version become law, the North Dakota Monitor reported.

The state legislative session is set to wrap up on May 9.

Ohio

The senate is considering a proposal to make students eligible for the state’s voucher offering even if they are already receiving state funds from the state’s separate voucher programs, which offer larger per-student awards for special education.

Students with disabilities currently can receive state support for private school tuition of $9,000 to $32,000 a year from the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship Program. Students with autism are eligible for a comparable award amount from the Autism Scholarship Program.

Right now, students participating in those programs can’t also apply for a voucher worth $6,000 to $8,000 from the state’s universal EdChoice program. If the new bill passes, the state will invest as much as $38 million to make those students eligible, whether they’re receiving a separate voucher or not.

House lawmakers in late March also proposed to invest $51 million a year for a new education savings account program for students attending one of the state’s roughly 360 non-chartered private schools, which decline to comply with the state government’s rules due to their religious beliefs. The state would offer students award amounts based on a state formula that accounts their income.

The governor must sign the budget into law by June 30.

South Carolina

The state supreme court ruled last September that the state constitution’s “Blaine Amendment” prohibits the state from using public dollars to cover the cost of private school tuition. That ruling essentially nullified the state’s existing education savings account program.

Senate and House lawmakers reached an agreement on April 16 to reconcile differences between two slightly different proposals for reviving the ESA program. Beginning in the 2026-27 school year, up to 15,000 participants a year would be eligible to receive awards of $7,500 apiece, as long as their family income is below 500 percent of the federal poverty level.

Funding for the program will come either from the state’s lottery fund or its general fund. Lawmakers created those two separate mechanisms in hopes that the state supreme court will agree that at least one of them is allowable under the law. The bill also includes a requirement that the state education chief appoint an independent trustee who isn’t paid by the state to oversee disbursement of the funds.

Another lawsuit to challenge the program’s new funding approach is likely.

The state legislative session adjourns May 7.

Texas

On Feb. 5, senators voted 19-12 to approve investing $1 billion in state funds to establish an education savings account program that would accept applications from all students. Each participating private school student would receive a base amount of $10,000; students with disabilities would each get $11,500; and home-school students would get a $2,000 ESA.

The House voted 86-61 on April 17 to approve a slightly different version of the bill with a base award that’s tied to the state’s public school investments in a given year. Students with disabilities would be eligible for an award of up to $30,000 each. Students without disabilities and from high-income families would be eligible for only 20 percent of the state’s annual investment.

Lawmakers from both houses will work to reconcile differences between the two bills before delivering a final proposal to the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott, who said he plans to enthusiastically sign.

Vermont

Gov. Phil Scott in February laid out a proposal for a new statewide school choice system that would be markedly different from any other state’s.

Each regional school division would be required to designate at least one high school—including public magnet schools as well as area private schools—as a “choice school.” Schools would only be eligible for that designation if half of their current students attend using public funds, which means many existing private schools in the state would be ineligible.

All of the state’s students in 9th through 12th grade would be eligible to apply for the “school choice lottery” in their district.

For students approved to attend a choice school through their district’s lottery, the state would direct those students’ per-pupil allocation to the choice school—whether it’s public or private.

Choice schools would be exempt from some state mandates related to academics and operations.

This system would mark a major departure from the state’s existing setup, in which students who live in areas without a local public school option for their grade level can use publicly funded vouchers to attend school elsewhere, including at private or religious schools.

The House on April 13 advanced an education reform package that did not include establishing a lottery or expanding school choice.