Private School Choice

Displaying 1-30 of 139 results
U.S. Treasury Department
Commentary
10.9.2026
School Finance, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

One detail in FSTC proposed regs will reduce participation in public schools

Marguerite Roza, Maggie Cicco

Over the summer, Edunomics Lab predicted that, once up and at scale, the federal tax credit scholarship (FSTC) could generate some $1,000 per public school student. However, now that Treasury has released its long-awaited draft regulations, we’re downgrading that prediction. It all comes down to an onerous requirement that public school participants prove they are not super rich.

U.S. Treasury Department
Alpha School
Commentary
9.11.2026
Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Alpha School’s Theranos problem

Van Schoales

I was recently walking around Austin, Texas. And a block from the new W Hotel, I passed Alpha School, housed in what looked like a tech office. Outside was a sign reading “Kids crush academics in two hours, build life skills, and thrive,” under a big photo of the founder.

Alpha School
Catholic school
Commentary
9.3.2026
Curriculum & Instruction, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

America’s oldest school model may be its future

Stephanie Saroki de Garcia

Many of the qualities that will matter most for students going forward are those that cannot be automated: judgment, self-command, compassion, and courage. They are also traits that Catholic schools have spent generations cultivating. In an age hungry for meaning, Catholic schools understand what humans need to flourish.

Catholic school
Students walking to school
Commentary
8.27.2026
Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

The supply side of school choice: Who participates? Who doesn’t?

Mike McShane

“If you build it, they will come” makes a great tagline for a mythical baseball movie but a poor strategy for educational improvement. Markets are not magic and are shaped by external factors that encourage or discourage participation.

Students walking to school
Classroom
Commentary
8.20.2026
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

Can charter schools survive universal school choice?

Daniel Buck

Echoing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s sentiments distancing herself from wokeness, a common sentiment among reformers seems to be that the bipartisan education reform era was “craazzy.” Standardized testing pep rallies, the glorified grant writing beauty pageant called Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind, guarantees of

Classroom
US Supreme Court
Commentary
7.16.2026
School Finance, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice

Religious liberty in education: Back to the Supreme Court

Kathleen Porter-Magee

The question of whether, when, and how public funding may flow to religious schools has been contested for more than 150 years, animated by the tension between the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which bars the state from sponsoring religion, and its Free Exercise Clause, which restricts the burdens that can be placed on religion.

US Supreme Court
Caution tape
Commentary
6.18.2026
Governance, Private School Choice

The Education Freedom Tax Credit could blow up in our faces

Daniel Buck

The Education Freedom Tax Credit could be an utter disaster, argues Buck. The greatest risk is that, in time, the program will become a stick that the federal government can wield to thwack private schools into submission. But that’s not the only problem.

Caution tape
Preschool classroom
Commentary
6.18.2026
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice

The case for including early childhood education in education choice programs

Elliot Regenstein, Theresa Hawley , Katie Reed

Lately there has been a lot of discussion about whether states should opt in to the federal “Education Freedom Tax Credit”—a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for individual contributions to nonprofit s

Preschool classroom
New York Governor Kathy Hochul
Commentary
5.14.2026
Governance, Private School Choice

Trump’s education tax credit is poorly designed, but blue states should opt into it anyway

Michael J. Petrilli

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has announced her intention to participate in the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit, joining Colorado Governor Jared Polis as the only Democrats thus far to do so. Should those who support school choice in all its varieties but aren’t crazy about the particulars of the federal initiative celebrate these decisions?

New York Governor Kathy Hochul
students raising their hands
Commentary
3.5.2026
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

The role of private school choice in a morally fractured age

Brandon L. Wright

The United States is in a period of moral fragmentation and decay, and the extended family—the primary historical source of moral education—has given way to a nuclear family that is stretched thin and, in many cases, itself fractured.

students raising their hands
Students looking at a globe
Commentary
2.26.2026
Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Global school choice at a glance

Jeff Murray

School choice has expanded and diversified over the last 30 years. No longer is it just “public vs. private” or even “district vs. charter vs.

Students looking at a globe
Football goalposts
Commentary
2.5.2026
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice

School choice supporters keep moving the goal posts

Michael J. Petrilli

Over the past decade or so, as the education reform movement has increasingly splintered along partisan lines, the number of people who support both charter schools and private school choice has shrunk to almost nothing. One cause of the growing divide is that some private school choice advocates are making demands that are increasingly outlandish.

Football goalposts
Man making a speech
Commentary
1.29.2026
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, School Finance, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

How to become an “education governor” in 2026

Chad Aldeman

Dear governor, Do you want to be remembered for your leadership on education? Your state may be spending nearly half its budget on schools, and yet test scores continue to fall, especially for the students who need the most help.

Man making a speech
Diverse students
Commentary
1.29.2026
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

How school choice affects racial and ethnic segregation patterns in traditional districts

Jeff Murray

Traditional school districts have increasingly embraced giving students more options within their systems in recent decades, in response to growing charter and private school competition and the desire of district parents for more specialized programs and services for their children.

Diverse students
Sacred Heart Academy in Biloxi Mississippi
Commentary
1.22.2026
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Educational choice is giving new hope to Catholic schools

Mike McShane

Today is one of the most hopeful times for Catholic education since the early 1960s, when tuitions started to rise and enrollments started their long decline. Today’s private-school choice programs solve that problem.

Sacred Heart Academy in Biloxi Mississippi
Homeschooling
Commentary
11.21.2025
Accountability & Testing, Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice

In the era of ESAs, who’s watching homeschooling?

Elainah Elkins, Jill Hoppe

In recent years, homeschooling has quietly become one of the fastest-growing corners of the school choice movement.

Homeschooling
Students in a classroom
Commentary
10.16.2025
Curriculum & Instruction, Governance, Private School Choice

The “deprivatization” threat: How private schools could soon look like public schools

Dale Chu

The new federal tax-credit scholarship is being hailed as a breakthrough for school choice: more options, more opportunity, more innovation. But history offers a warning. Even though these tax-credit funds never technically enter federal coffers, once Washington confers a benefit, its influence tends to follow.

Students in a classroom
Father and sons walking to school
Commentary
10.9.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Private School Choice

Families aren’t waiting for schools to be fixed

Robert Pondiscio

Coming out of Covid and with an efflorescence of alternatives to traditional public schools, it’s been clear for a while that the relationship between families and s

Father and sons walking to school
Parent and child doing homework
Commentary
9.25.2025
Accountability & Testing, Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice, Teachers & School Leaders

Gaslighting parents about learning loss could cost Democrats the White House

Ben Austin

As a Los Angeles Unified School District parent during the pandemic, I had a front row seat as my fellow Democrats and their teachers union allies lit the match that turned a global health crisis into an education inferno.

Parent and child doing homework
Donald Trump
Commentary
9.4.2025
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

Will Donald Trump be remembered as an education president?

Dale Chu

Last month, Education Secretary Linda McMahon expressed hope that Donald Trump will be remembered as an “education president,” arguing that “sending education back to the states” warrants

Donald Trump
Indiana Statehouse
Commentary
8.28.2025
Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

Indiana just removed one of the major barriers to starting a new school

Mike McShane

With eighteen words tucked into a 37-page education bill, the Indiana state legislature took a major step towards easing the lives of educational entrepreneurs. Those words? “A public school, charter school, or nonpublic school shall be considered a permitted use in all zoning districts.”

Indiana Statehouse
Students entering a school
Commentary
8.28.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Governance, Private School Choice

The factors influencing private school choice enrollment

Jeff Murray

As private school choice policies have proliferated and matured across the country, researchers have looked at the policy side of the process, as well as

Students entering a school
Red tape
Commentary
8.14.2025
Accountability & Testing, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

Overregulated charter schools: Fact or fiction?

Michael J. Petrilli

Many pundits claim that the charter schools sector once had great potential for innovation, but because of dastardly authorizers and other red-tape-loving bureaucrats, charters instead became overly cautious, impeding innovation in a way that has hamstrung and limited the entire charter school movement. Is that true?

Red tape
Mother and son touring city
Commentary
8.6.2025
Evidence-Based Learning, Charter Schools, Governance, Private School Choice

A new way to measure school quality

David Griffith, Ph.D., Meredith Coffey, Ph.D.

Education savings accounts in Texas. Open enrollment in Missouri. Each week seems to bring a new story and more education options for American students.

Mother and son touring city
Image of hand with money and graduation cap
Commentary
7.24.2025
School Finance, Governance, Private School Choice

Trump’s school choice initiative puts Democratic governors in a bind

Michael J. Petrilli

Will Democratic leaders opt their states into the new federal school choice provision, allowing families to accept scholarships that are funded by charitable donations from taxpayers nationwide? Or will they bow to the demands of the teachers unions and bar the schoolhouse door instead, creating a grand opportunity for GOP candidates running against them?

Image of hand with money and graduation cap