National school choice group celebrates 1M students in choice programs

Over a million students are now participating in school choice programs nationwide.

EdChoice, an education freedom advocacy group, celebrated the milestone in an announcement on Wednesday.

“To the countless national and state partners, families throughout the country, and bold policymakers, thank you for making this possible!” wrote Robert Enlow, president and CEO of EdChoice.  

Enlow recalled that when EdChoice launched in 1996, fewer than 10,000 students participated in school choice programs. Thanks to the recent wave of universal school choice, that number has grown a hundredfold.  

Louisiana is the latest state to jump on the universal choice bandwagon – following the examples of Arizona, Iowa, Indiana, Utah, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Alabama and Georgia.  

Several programs, such as Oklahoma’s and Utah’s, have already maxed out their funding for the year, while others have a staggering number of participants.  

For example, Indiana awarded 70,000 Choice Scholarships for the 2023-24 school year. And North Carolina received 72,000 applications, but didn’t have the budget to approve them all.  

From tax credits to education savings accounts to vouchers, school choice comes in all shapes and sizes and serves an equally diverse population of students.  

Most programs give priority to, or even limit participation to, disadvantaged students – which can include students in foster care, from military families, living in a low-quality public school district, or those experiencing violence at school. 

Of the 80 programs nationwide about 30 are designed for, or prioritize, special needs students. Another 40 favor low-income families. 

As a result, school choice programs are full of low-income, minority and otherwise underprivileged students who benefit from better educational opportunities.  

In Philadelphia, students receiving a private school scholarship were twice as likely to meet grade-level standards in reading and math as were their public-school counterparts.  

And Wisconsin researchers found students who use the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program have 7-8% higher proficiency rates in both English and math. 

Photo credit: the National School Choice Awareness Foundation.