ChoiceFunded What your state pays

Charter schools and private school choice, state by state

29 states and DC have both public charter schools and a program that pays toward private school. Below: 8,104 open charter schools from the 2025-26 federal public school directory, 21,366 private schools from the federal private school survey, and each state's program, in one table.

Which kinds of school choice each state has
  • Charter schools and a private school choice program 30
  • Charter schools, no private school choice program 15
  • Private school choice program, no charter schools 3
  • Neither 3
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Charter schools as a share of charter and private schools

Of each state's open charter schools and the private schools in the federal survey, the share that are charter schools. States with at least 20 of the two together.

Charter schools as a share of charter and private schools All states: 27%
  1. District of Columbia 72% 124 charter, 49 private
  2. Arizona 65% 549 charter, 302 private
  3. Alaska 56% 32 charter, 25 private
  4. Utah 53% 149 charter, 132 private
  5. Nevada 53% 102 charter, 92 private
  6. Colorado 51% 260 charter, 252 private
  7. Arkansas 47% 102 charter, 114 private
  8. New Mexico 47% 102 charter, 117 private
  9. Texas 46% 1,095 charter, 1,263 private
  10. Minnesota 43% 306 charter, 399 private
  11. Idaho 43% 86 charter, 114 private
  12. Michigan 41% 373 charter, 546 private
  13. Oklahoma 36% 78 charter, 138 private
  14. California 36% 1,263 charter, 2,273 private
  15. Louisiana 34% 143 charter, 274 private
  16. Rhode Island 33% 42 charter, 85 private
  17. Oregon 32% 130 charter, 279 private
  18. Hawaii 30% 40 charter, 93 private
  19. South Carolina 29% 111 charter, 276 private
  20. Ohio 28% 346 charter, 880 private
  21. North Carolina 28% 219 charter, 568 private
  22. Florida 28% 740 charter, 1,928 private
  23. New Hampshire 27% 47 charter, 126 private
  24. Delaware 25% 24 charter, 71 private
  25. Wisconsin 24% 221 charter, 683 private
  26. Tennessee 24% 119 charter, 373 private
  27. New York 23% 352 charter, 1,152 private
  28. Wyoming 23% 8 charter, 27 private
  29. Indiana 21% 137 charter, 529 private
  30. Missouri 15% 82 charter, 469 private
  31. Georgia 14% 99 charter, 589 private
  32. Massachusetts 13% 72 charter, 493 private
  33. Illinois 12% 128 charter, 938 private
  34. Pennsylvania 11% 173 charter, 1,361 private
  35. New Jersey 10% 84 charter, 765 private
  36. Maine 10% 11 charter, 102 private
  37. Alabama 9% 26 charter, 260 private
  38. Connecticut 9% 23 charter, 230 private
  39. Maryland 9% 49 charter, 516 private
  40. West Virginia 7% 7 charter, 98 private
  41. Mississippi 5% 10 charter, 172 private
  42. Iowa 5% 10 charter, 181 private
  43. Kansas 4% 7 charter, 162 private
  44. Washington 3% 16 charter, 504 private
  45. Virginia 1% 7 charter, 631 private
  46. Kentucky 0% 0 charter, 257 private
  47. Montana 0% 0 charter, 104 private
  48. Nebraska 0% 0 charter, 171 private
  49. North Dakota 0% 0 charter, 47 private
  50. South Dakota 0% 0 charter, 66 private
  51. Vermont 0% 0 charter, 90 private

State by state

Click a column heading to sort. The program column links each state's program page; the charter column links its charter schools.

StateCharter schools (2025-26)Of them onlineCharter students (2024-25) Private schools (survey 2023-24)Charter sharePrivate school choice programPrivate schools on the state list
Alabama 26 0 8,356 260 +79 from the state list 9% CHOOSE Act education savings account 171 66% of survey schools
Alaska 32 2 7,266 25 56% none
Arizona 549 41 227,182 302 65% ESA education savings account no state list we load
Arkansas 102 8 42,112 114 +32 from the state list 47% EFA education savings account 86 75% of survey schools
California 1,263 108 719,236 2,273 36% none
Colorado 260 5 129,140 252 51% none
Connecticut 23 0 10,811 230 9% none
Delaware 24 0 19,032 71 25% none
District of Columbia 124 1 41,502 49 +10 from the state list 72% OSP scholarship 25 51% of survey schools
Florida 740 10 403,109 1,928 +857 from the state list 28% FES / FTC education savings account 1,557 81% of survey schools
Georgia 99 2 63,494 589 +121 from the state list 14% Promise Scholarship education savings account 237 40% of survey schools
Hawaii 40 0 12,984 93 30% none
Idaho 86 0 40,893 114 43% PCTC refundable tax credit no state list we load
Illinois 128 0 58,066 938 12% none
Indiana 137 6 55,069 529 +113 from the state list 21% Choice Scholarship scholarship 312 59% of survey schools
Iowa 10 1 804 181 +93 from the state list 5% Students First ESA education savings account 152 84% of survey schools
Kansas 7 4 2,347 162 +33 from the state list 4% TCLISS tax-credit scholarship 117 72% of survey schools
Kentucky none 257 0% none
Louisiana 143 3 94,434 274 34% LA GATOR education savings account no state list we load
Maine 11 2 2,717 102 +3 from the state list 10% Town tuitioning scholarship 25 25% of survey schools
Maryland 49 0 24,534 516 +28 from the state list 9% BOOST scholarship 146 28% of survey schools
Massachusetts 72 0 48,114 493 13% none
Michigan 373 23 154,171 546 41% none
Minnesota 306 22 71,195 399 43% none
Mississippi 10 0 3,977 172 5% ESA education savings account no state list we load
Missouri 82 0 25,548 469 15% MOScholars tax-credit scholarship no state list we load
Montana none 104 0% SSO tax credit tax-credit scholarship no state list we load
Nebraska none 171 0% none
Nevada 102 4 66,970 92 +42 from the state list 53% Opportunity Scholarship tax-credit scholarship 59 64% of survey schools
New Hampshire 47 2 6,037 126 27% EFA education savings account no state list we load
New Jersey 84 0 63,000 765 10% none
New Mexico 102 2 32,595 117 47% none
New York 352 0 186,321 1,152 23% none
North Carolina 219 10 151,768 568 +162 from the state list 28% Opportunity Scholarship scholarship 429 76% of survey schools
North Dakota none 47 0% none
Ohio 346 17 121,575 880 +167 from the state list 28% EdChoice scholarship 491 56% of survey schools
Oklahoma 78 16 54,829 138 +129 from the state list 36% PCTC refundable tax credit 113 82% of survey schools
Oregon 130 20 44,564 279 32% none
Pennsylvania 173 14 168,109 1,361 +76 from the state list 11% EITC / OSTC tax-credit scholarship 308 23% of survey schools
Rhode Island 42 1 13,465 85 33% RI scholarship tax credit tax-credit scholarship no state list we load
South Carolina 111 8 61,956 276 +93 from the state list 29% ESTF education savings account 118 43% of survey schools
South Dakota none 66 0% Partners in Education tax-credit scholarship no state list we load
Tennessee 119 0 44,273 373 +68 from the state list 24% EFS scholarship 185 50% of survey schools
Texas 1,095 7 482,234 1,263 +468 from the state list 46% TEFA education savings account 788 62% of survey schools
Utah 149 7 81,147 132 53% UFA education savings account no state list we load
Vermont none 90 0% Town tuitioning scholarship 13 14% of survey schools
Virginia 7 0 1,270 631 1% EISTC tax-credit scholarship no state list we load
Washington 16 0 4,708 504 3% none
West Virginia 7 2 3,366 98 +45 from the state list 7% Hope education savings account 81 83% of survey schools
Wisconsin 221 53 47,223 683 +92 from the state list 24% WI Choice scholarship 371 54% of survey schools
Wyoming 8 0 1,294 27 +16 from the state list 23% Steamboat Legacy ESA education savings account 21 78% of survey schools
All8,104401 3,902,79721,36627%32 states and DC

Download every row: charter-and-private-school-choice-by-state.csv (CC BY 4.0).

How we counted

  • Charter schools are the schools flagged as charter schools in the U.S. Department of Education's Common Core of Data public school directory for 2025-26 (a preliminary file), with status open, new, added, reopened or changed. Online charter schools are counted and also shown on their own. Students are the 2024-25 membership count for the school, which includes prekindergarten where the school has it; 293 charters, most of them new, have no 2024-25 count.
  • Private schools are the schools from the Private School Universe Survey for 2023-24 that we list, the same base as our participation by state study. A school listed twice under two names counts once. Schools we know only from a state's participation list are shown beside the count and left out of it.
  • Private school choice program is the main program on each state's program page: a voucher, an education savings account, a tax credit scholarship, a refundable tax credit, or town tuitioning in Maine and Vermont. A state with none of these is marked none. Program size, eligibility and award differ widely; this table records only whether one exists.
  • On the state list counts the survey schools named on the state's own published list of participating schools, matched by name and town, or by address or phone. A listed school we could not match counts as not listed, so each figure is a floor.
  • Charter and private schools are counted from two federal files two years apart, and a charter count includes schools of every size. The charter share compares numbers of schools, not students.

Questions

How many states have both charter schools and private school choice?

29 states and DC, counting a state as having private school choice when it runs a voucher, education savings account, tax credit scholarship, refundable tax credit or town tuitioning program that our program pages cover.

Which states have no charter schools?

In the 2025-26 federal directory: Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont.

Are charter schools part of "school choice"?

Charter schools are public schools that charge no tuition, so families choose them without a voucher or account. This study counts them separately from private schools and from the programs that pay private school costs, so each kind of choice can be compared state by state.

Why do the private school counts differ from other sources?

We count the private schools from the 2023-24 federal Private School Universe Survey that we list, with duplicates merged once. Schools that opened since the survey, or that did not answer it, are not in that count; schools we know only from a state list are shown in their own column.

Can I reuse this data?

Yes. The full table is a CSV download under CC BY 4.0: cite ChoiceFunded and link to this page.

Sources

Charter schools: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data, public school directory 2025-26 (preliminary) and school membership 2024-25. Private schools: National Center for Education Statistics, Private School Universe Survey 2023-24. Programs and lists: each state's program page and published list, linked from our program pages with their dates. Find a school: public charter schools by state and private schools by state. This page is rebuilt with the directory, most recently . More studies: ChoiceFunded research.

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