2025 School Choice Snapshot Edchoice

Leo Migdal

-Dec 3, 2025, 6:49 AM

We publish reports on the state and national level, including original empirical research, surveys, public polls, syntheses and more. To learn more about what we do, visit our Research page, or our Fiscal Research and Education Center. School Choice Snapshot (formerly EdChoice 101) provides a national overview of how these programs work on the ground. With state-by-state maps, updated participation data, and clear definitions of program types—including ESAs, vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, and newer innovations like refundable tax credits—this guide helps demystify the landscape of school choice and clarifies which... Since its original publication date on July 14, 2025, we’ve reviewed additional data and reclassified two programs in Utah. Additionally, we have removed some maps referring to universality; those will be published in the 2026 edition of The ABCs of School Choice.

The Utah programs and corresponding participation charts and maps have been updated, and the in-progress maps have been removed. If you’ve already downloaded or shared the earlier version of School Choice Snapshot, we encourage you to replace it with the updated publication. The 2025 edition of The ABCs of School Choice arrives at a pivotal time in the movement for educational freedom. In a few short years, we’ve seen the school choice landscape boom, with broadly reaching programs being enacted at record pace, drastically increasing the number of families eligible to choose a new learning environment... We are seeing a reshaping of the educational landscape and expansion of opportunities for families nationwide. This year, ten states made significant strides in school choice.

Alabama launched the CHOOSE Act, a phased-in education savings account program that will eventually offer universal eligibility. Louisiana followed with the GATOR program, set to also expand to universal eligibility in the coming years. Georgia and Wyoming also introduced new programs, and six states expanded existing ones. These advancements reflect a deepening commitment to ensuring families have the freedom and resources to choose the best education for their children. However, as choice grows, a critical question remains: Are we truly giving families the options they need? The 2025 ABCs of School Choice introduces a new universal framework to better evaluate the impact and reach of educational choice programs.

Programs are now assessed based on three critical pillars: universal eligibility, universal usage, and universal funding. Programs in 13 states allow all K–12 students to participate. Programs in 16 states allow families broad flexibility in how they spend program funds, with no requirement to prioritize tuition first. Programs in 17 states and Puerto Rico are backed by sustainable revenue sources, ensuring all qualifying students are guaranteed funding. Even more exciting, four states meet all three criteria for a truly universal program. Check out the book to find out which ones.

We publish reports on the state and national level, including original empirical research, surveys, public polls, syntheses and more. To learn more about what we do, visit our Research page, or our Fiscal Research and Education Center. Our annual SIA survey, in partnership with Braun Research, provides an opportunity to assess how Americans’ perspectives on K–12 education have shifted over the last decade. Over the course of the survey’s 13-year history, we have asked a set of recurring questions focusing on the direction of K–12 education, parents’ schooling preferences, parents’ satisfaction with their child’s schooling experiences, and... Furthermore, we include a set of new questions each year to better understand parents’ opinions on more timely issues within K–12 education. Some of the new questions this year revolve around the role of the federal government in K–12 education, school funding, and more.

Click here to delve into our interactive Schooling in America Polling Dashboard. Based on the new podcast series: Tough Questions with Robert Enlow When you work in education policy long enough, one question comes up again and again: Does school choice actually work? In our new podcast series Tough Questions with Robert Enlow, we tackled this right out of the gate. The short answer? Yes, and we have decades of evidence showing why.

Below is a breakdown of the most important takeaways from the conversation, boiled down into a clear, easy to read guide to answer skeptics, reporters, and curious parents. Before looking at test scores or studies, the most natural question is: Are families happy? Across nearly every state with a school choice program, satisfaction among parents participating in choice programs are very high. At a time when school choice is expanding rapidly and public interest is high, the need for trusted, accessible information has never been greater. That’s why we’re proud to release the 2025 EdChoice Bundle, a curated collection of five resources designed to give policymakers, advocates, journalists, and families a full picture of educational choice in America today. This year’s Bundle includes updated and renamed publications, new insights from our ongoing polling and research efforts, and, for the first time, a resource entirely focused on K–12 education funding.

Together, these five guides form a comprehensive, plain-language foundation for anyone seeking to better understand the programs, policies, perceptions, legal context, and fiscal impact of educational choice. The Bundle begins with Legal Landscape, formerly Legal Basics, which offers a concise overview of school choice litigation across the country. It walks readers through constitutional arguments commonly raised in court, maps the legal status of school choice in each state, and tracks active and historic cases. Written for non-lawyers, this guide explains complex legal issues in everyday language—making it an indispensable reference for those designing or defending choice programs. From there, School Choice Snapshot (formerly EdChoice 101) provides a national overview of how these programs work on the ground. With state-by-state maps, updated participation data, and clear definitions of program types—including ESAs, vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, and newer innovations like refundable tax credits—this guide helps demystify the landscape of school choice and clarifies which...

As the conversation around educational choice continues to evolve, so does the need to ground that conversation in evidence. That’s where the Research Review comes in. Formerly the EdChoice Study Guide, this publication distills more than 200 empirical studies on the outcomes of school choice programs, including their academic effects, fiscal impacts, and influence on civic values, parental satisfaction, and... Categorized and cited for transparency, these findings help separate fact from fiction, providing a research-driven foundation for evaluating policy effectiveness. What do Americans really think about K–12 education? Each year, EdChoice’s Schooling in America Survey provides one of the most comprehensive answers to that question.

This week, we released the 2025 edition — our 13th annual, nationally representative look at parents’ and the public’s views on everything from school satisfaction and funding to educational choice policies and the role... Over the course of the survey’s 13-year history, we have asked a set of recurring questions focusing on the direction of K–12 education, parents’ schooling preferences, parents’ satisfaction with their child’s schooling experiences, and... Furthermore, we include a set of new questions each year to better understand parents’ opinions on more timely issues within K–12 education. Some of the new questions this year revolve around the role of the federal government in K–12 education, school funding, and more. The Schooling in America survey was fielded from March 28th to April 7th, 2025. We obtained nationally representative samples of both the general population (N=1,514) and current school parents (N=2,455).

Note to readers: Every year when we release SIA, someone reaches out to ask how this survey is different from the monthly EdChoice Public Opinion Tracker. SIA is an annual survey (first launched in 2013) that employs a mixed-methodology including non-probability-based online panels and probability-based live phone calls. We take the longer view with SIA – reporting historical trends and year-over-year changes for key questions surrounding K–12 education. Our Tracker launched in January 2020 in partnership with Morning Consult. The Tracker differs from SIA in a few key areas. First, it is fielded monthly which allows us to ask questions that gauge how the public and parents feel about more timely issues around K–12 education.

That frequency allows us to examine more granular changes in opinion – as we did during the COVID-19 pandemic – to see how experiences and opinions may shift in shorter time periods during the... Finally, within the overarching Public Opinion Tracker polling series we also survey a nationally representative sample of K–12 teachers twice a year. With that, let’s dive into some of the key findings from the 2025 SIA survey: Parents are more optimistic about the direction of K–12 education School choice means giving parents the power to select the best educational environments for their children. Navigate School Choice celebrates all of the K-12 education options that parents can choose – or want to be able to choose – for their kids.

These options include: traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, homeschooling, and microschooling and mix-and-match learning. Navigate School Choice does not prefer one type of choice above another. Instead, we believe that parents themselves are best qualified to make decisions for their children. This page provides an up-to-date overview of the school choice trends happening across the nation. The school choice movement has been growing for over 30 years, and so far in 2025, 16 states created new or expanded existing school choice programs. As school choices expand, families are talking.

Reports show strong take-up rates of these new options as parents actively engage in comparing and choosing between learning choices. In a January 2025 parent survey, 60% of U.S. parents of school-aged children considered sending at least one of their children to a different school last year. Open enrollment and traditional public schools are established by school districts and are available for children in all 50 states. These schools do not charge tuition. Open enrollment policies make it possible for parents to choose traditional public schools that are outside of their zone or district.

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We Publish Reports On The State And National Level, Including

We publish reports on the state and national level, including original empirical research, surveys, public polls, syntheses and more. To learn more about what we do, visit our Research page, or our Fiscal Research and Education Center. School Choice Snapshot (formerly EdChoice 101) provides a national overview of how these programs work on the ground. With state-by-state maps, updated participatio...

2025 School Choice Snapshot Edchoice

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We Publish Reports On The State And National Level, Including

The Utah Programs And Corresponding Participation Charts And Maps Have

Alabama Launched The CHOOSE Act, A Phased-in Education Savings Account

Programs Are Now Assessed Based On Three Critical Pillars: Universal

We Publish Reports On The State And National Level, Including