It’s hard to ponder our education system for long and come away thinking it makes sense. This is especially true for our lack of choice in public education. Think about it: We aren’t assigned and restricted to specific grocery stores, hospitals, car dealerships, or churches based on where we happen to live. Even when tax dollars are involved, such as with food stamps or Medicaid, people can choose among a variety of private providers.

Parents of children below the age of five choose where — even whether — to send their children to preschool. Likewise, young adults choose whether and where to receive post-secondary education. Even when vouchers or state grants are involved, no one is assigned to a preschool or college based on where they live.
But when it comes to educating children in the 5-17 age range (give or take a bit depending on the state), it’s a completely different story. The government assigns kids in this age group to a school based on their home address. Sure, it’s easy to understand why the system was set up that way in the 1800s when transportation and communication were difficult. If it made any sense in 2024, wouldn’t we see people clamoring to assign people to providers in other sectors based on where they live?
Happily, there’s growing recognition that children should be educated based on their needs, not their addresses. That’s the premise behind school choice, which is an umbrella term for a variety of programs that allow tax dollars to follow children to a variety of educational options. A voucher program created in 1990 to give lower-income families in Milwaukee access to private schools is considered the first modern school choice program in America. According to the advocacy group EdChoice, there are now 80 school choice programs on the books in 31 states plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, with more than a million students participating.
Much of the growth in school choice has happened post-COVID. School closures led to Zoom schooling, ...