30 for 30: Celebrating the 30th State to Enact School Choice

EdChoice is marking the 30^th anniversary of its founding this year (and, to borrow from Ron Burgundy, it’s kind of a big deal).

via GIPHY

That journey has taken us from a place in time when you had very little school choice at your disposal unless you happened to live either in the Milwaukee Public Schools district or close to a charter school. Fast forward, and we now have about 1.5 million students taking part in 75 total programs operating in 34 different states, plus Washington D.C. and the territory of Puerto Rico.

In the spirit of celebrating the number 30, we thought we’d highlight the program that brought us to the 30-state threshold, West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship Program. It marked a major inflection point in the history of school choice.

The West Virginia state legislature passed House Bill 2013 on March 17, 2021, and it was signed into law by Governor Jim Justice just a few days later. A quick read of the bill’s travails in the legislature that year shows a laundry list of amendments and floor readings, which tells you how much care and support was needed to bring this bill home. That advocacy was admirably provided in the form of school choice champions like state Senator Patricia Rucker and the Cardinal Institute. In the intervening 17 months’ time between the bill’s passage and start of the 2022-23 school year, state officials like Treasurer Riley Moore traveled across the state to inform families about this great opportunity now available to them.

The bill created an Education Savings Account (ESA) program available to most of the state’s K-12 student population, except for those who had been homeschooled or attended a private school the year before they would first receive a scholarship (so, the 2021-22 school year). The bill provided for eligibility to expand to all age-eligible West Virginians starting in 2026-27 so long as fewer than 5% of the state’s public school net enrollment had signed up for the program by the summer of 2024 (which did happen!).

We recognize Hope Scholarship ESA as a truly universal choice program, which is not an easy distinction to hold.

To be truly universal, the program must be open to every age-eligible student in the state, offer sufficient flexibility in spending choices, and have a complete and reliable funding stream set forth in statute and regulations. I explained above why it offers universal eligibility. Hope also meets EdChoice’s requirement for universal options, with varied spending categories that include private school tuition and fees, online learning, tutoring, testing fees, transportation, educational therapies, and costs for obtaining an industry-based credential, among others. The final version of the bill sets the annual ESA per-student account cap at the average per-pupil net state aid share. This is an important provision because allows for students in the program to access more funds when the state increases its per-pupil funding.

Even though West Virginia has a small K-12 public school enrollment (about 253,000 in Fall 2023) compared to many other states, their ESA has grown at a healthy rate. It’s grown from 2,333 students in its first year (2022-23) to 14,221 in its fourth year, 2025-26. That’s a comparable trajectory to another universal ESA, New Hampshire’s Education Freedom Account Program, which grew from 2,061 students in its first year to 10,000 students in its fifth year. The most recent annual report shows about 192 total nonpublic schools participated with 32 of those being microschools. You can learn some more cool facts about the spending of the program by looking at the payments categories in that report – Hope students are able to purchase art supplies and equipment (about $279,000 spent collectively in 2024-25), software (about $17,000), and educational board games or puzzles (about $370,000).

The individual stories of West Virginians who have benefitted from Hope Scholarship are emotionally affecting. We had state Senator Rucker on our podcast in early 2025 – listen to this clip, where she explains that one of her constituents was able to use an ESA to move her granddaughter from a school where she was bullied terribly and was considering suicide over to a private school where she was able to thrive, form healthy friendships, and graduate on time. During the 2025 session, Ashley Bennett of the Charleston area explained how her son benefitted from receiving a Hope Scholarship to then attend a microschool, which offered stronger learning opportunities that were better tailored to his needs.

Our polling, which shows that 73% of West Virginia parents support ESAs, ties all of the above together: school choice has been and will be a winner for the Mountaineers.

West Virginia was almost heaven 50 years before every student could use their education dollars to select the school of their choice. Now, families are singing even happier tunes.

This was originally published to our Substack.