U.S. States Ranked by Educational Choice Share, 2016
We are introducing a new calculation to our school choice program rankings this year: educational choice share, or “edchoice share.” The calculations behind this ranking seek to answer one question: Which states have the highest and lowest percentage of students exercising their educational freedom through private school choice programs?
To get this number, we divided the total number of a state’s school choice program participants by the total number of taxpayer-supported students in the state.
Why focus on private choice programs and not all types of educational choice, such as virtual school, homeschool, course choice, charter school, inter- and intra- district choice, and others?
Right now, there are two reasons.
1) To calculate such a figure, we would need state-level participation data for all of the other types of educational choice options mentioned above. Boiled down, available data is simply too inconsistent right now to make an accurate, comparable estimate for all states.
2) This “edchoice share” percentage provides insight into the role private school choice programs play in bridging the stark gap between families’ schooling preferences and today’s actual enrollments.
For added context, we have also included estimates of total private school share for each state. To calculate that share, we divided a state’s total private school students by all known students attending school. Note: This calculation uses estimated U.S. Department of Education data, and some states have much larger margins of error than others.
We believe these two figures can tell us a lot about the effectiveness of states at meeting the demand of families for educational freedom and expanded learning options. Without further ado, allow us to present our 2016 “edchoice share” rankings below.
1. Arizona
5 Programs | 4.9% – edchoice share | 3.8% – private school share
2. Vermont
1 Program | 4.2% – edchoice share | 9.5% – private school share
3. Florida
3 Programs | 4.1% – edchoice share | 9.6% – private school share
4. Indiana
2 Programs | 3.9% – edchoice share | 9.8% – private school share
5. Wisconsin
3 Programs | 3.7% – edchoice share | 12.1% – private school share
6. Maine
1 Program | 3.1% – edchoice share | 9.0% – private school share
7. Pennsylvania
2 Programs | 2.8% – edchoice share | 12.2% – private school share
8. Ohio
5 Programs | 2.6% – edchoice share | 10.1% – private school share
9. Iowa
1 Program | 2.2% – edchoice share | 10.9% – private school share
10. District of Columbia
1 Program | 1.8% – edchoice share | 18.9% – private school share
11. Louisiana
3 Programs | 1.5% – edchoice share | 14.4% – private school share
12. Georgia
2 Programs | 1.0% – edchoice share | 6.7% – private school share
13. Alabama
1 Program | 0.5% – edchoice share | 8.4% – private school share
14. Rhode Island
1 Program | 0.4% – edchoice share | 14.1% – private school share
15. South Carolina
2 Programs | 0.3% – edchoice share | 6.2% – private school share
16. North Carolina
2 Programs | 0.2% – edchoice share | 6.6% – private school share
17. Oklahoma
1 Program | 0.2% – edchoice share | 4.5% – private school share
18. Nevada
2 Programs* | 0.1% – edchoice share | 4.4% – private school share
19. Utah
1 Program | 0.1% – edchoice share | 2.5% – private school share
20. Virginia
1 Program | 0.1% – edchoice share | 7.4% – private school share
21. Mississippi
3 Programs | 0.1% – edchoice share | 8.7% – private school share
22. New Hampshire
1 Program | 0.1% – edchoice share | 10.5% – private school share
23. Colorado
1 Program | 0.1% – edchoice share** | 5.1% – private school share
24. Kansas
1 Program | 0.02% – edchoice share | 7.7% – private school share
Arkansas
1 Program | Not Available | 5.0% – private school share
Illinois
1 Program** | Not Available| 10.3% – private school share
Minnesota
2 Programs** | Not Available| 8.4% – private school share
Montana
1 Program | Not Available | 5.7% – private school share
Tennessee
1 Program | Not Available | 7.8% – private school share
Alaska
0 Programs | None | 3.1% – private school share
California
0 Programs | None | 7.8% – private school share
Connecticut
0 Programs | None | 9.9% – private school share
Delaware
0 Programs | None | 14.3% – private school share
Hawaii
0 Programs | None | 15.5% – private school share
Idaho
0 Programs | None | 3.7% – private school share
Kentucky
0 Programs | None | 8.5% – private school share
Maryland
0 Programs | None | 12.3% – private school share
Massachusetts
0 Programs | None | 10.8% – private school share
Michigan
0 Programs | None | 7.2% – private school share
Missouri
0 Programs | None | 11.5% – private school share
Nebraska
0 Programs | None | 11.0% – private school share
New Jersey
0 Programs | None | 11.5% – private school share
New Mexico
0 Programs | None | 5.5% – private school share
New York
0 Programs | None | 14.1% – private school share
North Dakota
0 Programs | None | 6.2% – private school share
Oregon
0 Programs | None | 7.1% – private school share
South Dakota
0 Programs | None | 7.4% – private school share
Texas
0 Programs | None | 4.4% – private school share
Washington
0 Programs | None | 6.9% – private school share
West Virginia
0 Programs | None | 4.3% – private school share
Wyoming
0 Programs | None | 2.1% – private school share
*Participation data is not yet available for Nevada’s Education Savings Account program, which is currently under injunction.
**Minnesota’s and Illinois’s programs are individual tax credits/deductions. We know only the number of tax returns claiming the credits/deductions, not the actual number of program participants.
