The debate around school choice and education freedom often focuses on politics. But the evidence tells a different story. States with the strongest school choice laws include both conservative Florida and Arizona, and progressive-leaning Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Likewise, some of the weakest performers are reliably red. The lesson is clear: when it comes to giving families more options, political labels don’t tell the whole story.
Families, educators, students, and communities nationwide are currently participating in National School Choice Week, a time to recognize and celebrate the growing empowerment of parents to make informed educational decisions in partnership with and for their children.
The Center for Education Reform’s Parent Power! Index, which evaluates states annually on how well they empower families, confirms this. States at the top and bottom of the rankings cut across partisan lines, demonstrating that school choice is driven by opportunity, not ideology.
The data bears this out again and again. According to EdChoice and the Morning Consult, “school choice policies, especially ESAs, continue to enjoy strong levels of support as we enter into the 2025-26 school year. At least two-thirds of parents support charter schools (67%), vouchers (70%), ESAs (74%), and open enrollment (77%). These policies also enjoy majority support from the general population, though support levels are typically lower when compared to the support from school parents. Even the latest PDK/Gallup poll of Americans’ attitudes towards education, using a question that contains well-documented bias, found “59% of parents supported using public funding so that their child could attend a private or religious school”.
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