America’s education system is experiencing a paradigm shift never seen before. State-level school choice programs have made almost half of all K–12 students in the United States eligible for a private school choice program. In 1996, just 10,000 students nationwide participated in private school choice programs. By the 2024–2025 school year, that number had surged to more than 1.2 million. Before these reforms, alternative educational pathways were reserved almost exclusively for the wealthy. Today, armed with choice, families of all backgrounds are leaving the public school system in droves.
The traditional system has let families down for decades. For most of the past century, public education has operated as a monopoly: children were assigned to schools by ZIP code, regardless of whether those schools met their needs, and families without the means to move or pay tuition had no way out. Billions in taxpayer spending have bought mediocre results, and a one-size-fits-all model has left millions of students poorly served. School choice exists to correct this basic injustice by letting funding follow the student to the school that best meets their needs rather than the school the government assigned them to.
Yet the benefits of school choice programs are limited by several factors. Educational entrepreneurs face steep regulatory barriers that make it difficult to enter the market, limiting the supply of schools. School capacity and admission requirements can restrict access, compelling some families to remain in public schools within their home districts. Transportation can be a major challenge, as families may not have access to schools beyond their neighborhood. These hurdles weigh heaviest on rural communities, which are served by fewer providers simply because their populations are spread out, so every school that never opens is felt more acutely. In many situations, families do not lack choice on paper — the system is not sufficiently developed to facilitate that choice.
Critics see this unevenness as an indictment of school choice itself. They point to evidence from Arizona showing that families in wealthier communities receive a disproportionate share of education savings account funds, and they argue that choice is regressive. These observations deserve attention, but the diagnosis is incorrect. The rapid growth in participation of school choice programs shows that families across the income spectrum are actively seeking alternatives to the one-size-fits-all model. The question is not whether demand exists. It is whether the education sector can build enough capacity, in enough places, to meet it. The answer to uneven access is more supply, not less choice.
The top priority is clear: states must lower the regulatory barriers that keep new schools from opening. Heavy-handed licensing, drawn-out approvals, and accreditation rules designed for large institutions create a chilling effect, deterring the educators and investors who would otherwise build new options for families. States should streamline the approval process for education providers, right-size accreditation requirements that pose barriers to microschools and other new education providers, and welcome innovative learning models into their choice programs. Beyond regulation, states should let families put program funds toward transportation so children can reach schools outside their immediate area, and strengthen information systems so that parents at every income level can make informed choices about the options available.
Freedom in education is most effective when there are real choices for families. If students who would benefit from participating in a school choice program are not given access, or if regulations prevent new options from opening, then there is no real choice. Nor can choice be guaranteed if families cannot act on it because of information gaps or transportation obstacles. The objective should not be to hand parents a choice on paper. It should be to make sure that they have choices to make.
The school choice revolution is the greatest education policy change of our lifetime. The task ahead is not to retreat from it but to go one step further: eliminate the remaining obstacles so that every family, at every income level, can choose freely. Research suggests that competition created by voucher programs can encourage public schools to improve. When funding follows the pupil, every school must earn its students by raising standards or risk losing them. The next stage of school choice is to build a vibrant educational marketplace that maximizes the benefits for more students and communities.
Hayley Bieron is a policy associate at Americans for Prosperity.
