More than half the nation’s students now live in states with school choice, new data shows.
Over a dozen states made progress on school choice over the past year, including six that adopted universal school choice policies allowing all students to receive some form of funding to attend schools of their choice. Meanwhile, a full 25 states now incorporate a “parent bill of rights”?affirming that parents, not the state, are the primary caregivers.
That’s according to The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Education Freedom Report Card, an annual report that ranks states based on how well they advance education freedom and school choice for families.
“Parents are properly the primary educators of children,” said Jason Bedrick, a research fellow at Heritage’s Center for Education Policy. “States should be implementing policies that empower parents to choose schools that align best with their values and work best for their children.”
That’s what Heritage’s score card seeks to encourage, according to its authors—evaluating states based on criteria like availability of school choice programs, academic transparency, and quality of civics education.?
This year’s report card shows broad improvement across the board, with Texas and Idaho displaying the most growth. Texas, home to 11% of the nation’s children, just adopted a universal school choice policy this past year—helping the nation to reach what Bedrick called a “tipping point,” with half the students in the country living in states with school choice.
Florida ranked the highest on the scorecard, outperforming all other states in all but one category.
Florida’s high score reflects its “staying true to a very simple principle: Education decisions belong to parents,” state Department of Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas told The Daily Signal Tuesday.
“Parents in Florida have been empowered, and they’ve been energized to get involved,” Kamoutsas said.
Over 1.4 million Florida students—out of 2.9 million total—now benefit from school choice. Over 155,000 are homeschooled—nearly double the number from a few years ago—400,000 use charter schools, and 500,000 benefit from private school scholarships, Kamoutsas told The Daily Signal.
But Florida and pro-school choice advocates don’t seem content to rest on their laurels.
Asked what changes he hopes to see next, Jonathan Butcher, acting director of Heritage’s Center for Education Policy, said, “We’re at 25 states now that have a parent bill of rights. My hope is that would become 50.”
Kamoutsas says Florida’s next challenge will be tackling local pushback against school choice policies and passing legislation to provide accountability at traditional public schools.