Commonly referred to as “the year of universal school choice,” 2024 has ushered in the introduction and—more importantly—the enactment of an unprecedented number of policy advances for educational freedom across the country. And while those pertaining to private school choice (such as education savings accounts, refundable tax credits, vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, etc.) have understandably dominated national news and discourse, significant policy wins in other areas of educational policy have been widespread.
Reason Foundation tracked 156 bills across 35 states regarding educational choice, public school open enrollment, and school finance. The following are the most consequential of those legislative proposals signed into law.
Alabama
Alabama House Bill 129 enacted the Creating Hope and Opportunity for Our Students’ Education (CHOOSE) Act tax-credit program—the nation’s 10th “universal or near-universal” education savings account (ESA) program—merely 30 days after it was proposed. The ESA’s refundable income tax credits (capped at $7,000 and $2,000 for students enrolled in participating schools and non-participating schools, respectively) will allow parents of eligible students to fund tuition, curricula, tutoring, disability services, and other qualifying educational expenses. Although program eligibility will be limited to students from families with an adjusted gross income (AGI) not exceeding 300% of the preceding year’s federal poverty level (FPL) initially, the program will expand to universal eligibility by 2027.
The number of scholarships offered annually will depend on the monies available in the newly created CHOOSE Act Fund, which will receive a minimum annual appropriation of $100 million (enough funding for about 14,285 scholarships) and a maximum balance capped at $500 million. Education savings accounts will be awarded according to an established allocation order prioritizing renewing participants and their siblings, students from active-duty military families, low-income students, and students with disabilities.
Florida
This year, Florida enacted significant changes to its school-choice programs, particularly in consolidating, expanding, and clarifying its existing offerings.
Florida Committee Substitute/Committee Substitute/House Bill 1403 merged the tax-credit scholarship provisions of the state’s Hope Scholarship Program (HSP) into the existing Florida Tax Credit (FTC) and Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Opportunities (FES-EO) programs, allowing Fiscal Year 2024 HSP recipients to apply for their choice of the replacements. Moreover, it expanded eligibility for the aforementioned programs and the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Unique Abilities (FES-UA) to include the dependent children of active-duty military, prohibits participating in more than one of those scholarships concurrently, and codifies various other administrative changes.
Conversely, House Bill 5101 consolidated the FTC, FES-EO, and Drive Choice Grant programs’ student-transportation funding under a new, distinct transportation stipend. Contingent upon legislative appropriations, administered by an eligible certified administrator of school finance operations (SFO), and awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, this new program subsidizes the transportation of K–8 public school students to a lab school or Florida non-virtual public school other than that which they are assigned (i.e., open enrollment).
Georgia
With the passage of Senate Bill 233 in April, Georgia joined the growing list of states that have enacted an education savings accounts program. Termed the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, the program will be limited to students who currently reside in an attendance zone that is ranked, by performance, in the 25th percentile of Georgia schools; who have, with the exception of active-duty military dependents, been a resident of the state for at least one year; who are either eligible to enroll in a public-school kindergarten program in their school district or “switchers” that have been continuously enrolled in a Georgia public school for at least two consecutive enrollment counts; who have a family income not exceeding 400% of the FPL; who are not concurrently receiving an incompatible state- or SFO-provided benefit; and who are not otherwise ineligible for state scholarships and grants.
Accounts will be awarded $6,500 to subsidize the participating student’s tuition, fees, and other educational expenses.
Indiana
Indiana House Bill 1001 expands eligibility for the Indiana Education Scholarship Account Program—previously open only to students who have a disability, meet an income requirement, and enroll in a nonpublic school—to include siblings of otherwise qualifying ESA participants. However, such siblings are prohibited from using ESA funds for services, therapies, and transportation dedicated solely to students with disabilities.
Also signed into law this year in Indiana, House Bill 1380 amends the state’s open enrollment policies to prohibit a receiving school corporation from requiring the family of an enrolling nonresident student to pay transfer tuition or any other fee associated with the transfer. Moreover, the bill limits the circumstances under which certain school corporations—those with neither more than one high school nor a policy of accepting cross-district transfer students—may reject transferring students who reside in Indiana outside the school corporation’s attendance area.
Iowa
The first of three open enrollment bills enacted in Iowa this year, House File 2278, established new standards for the transportation of open enrollment students between their receiving school district and their school district of residence. Notably, it allows receiving districts to transport the students between the two districts when there is mutual agreement to the arrangement, and it establishes certain conditions under which permission from sending districts is not required. It also excuses resident school districts from the liability of paying for transportation of the open-enrollment transfer student to and from their receiving school district.
Iowa Senate File 2368 modified the state’s education funding formula, directing per-pupil funding allocations to follow students to a charter school or school district receiving open enrollment students. Such student-following categorical funding encompasses the per-pupil regular program, teacher leadership, professional development, early intervention, and non-English speaking supplemental state aids associated with educating the particular student.
Additionally, Iowa Senate File 2435 improves open enrollment transparency by establishing deadlines (within 5 days of the determination, in most cases) by which the board of receiving school districts must provide notice of application approval to the transfer applicant’s parents. Furthermore, it requires boards that prohibit a student’s transfer based on truancy status to notify the student’s parents. It also allows transfer applications to be accepted at any time by the sending and receiving districts, establishes certain rights and procedures for appealing denials, and requires the receiving district to accept timely requested open-enrollment transfers, regardless of their adverse effect on the district’s desegregation order.
Kansas
Kansas’s open-enrollment policies changed this year as a result of Senate Bill 387. Most importantly, the bill guarantees that current nonresident students may continue enrollment at their school district of nonresidence until they graduate from high school, so long as they remain in good standing. It also permits school districts to consider open enrollment applications from out-of-state students, with the caveat that admission priority must be given to non-resident students residing in Kansas. It also specifies that neither the resident nor receiving school district is responsible for associated transportation, that virtual schools are not subject to open enrollment statutes, and that “nonresident student” includes those who are seeking to enroll in and attend a non-resident district (rather than just those that are already enrolled in and attending a non-resident district).
Finally, the bill extends the open-enrollment application period, limits the circumstances under which transfer audits may be conducted, and requires that student transfer policy revisions be posted on a district’s website.
Louisiana
Louisiana made headlines by passing Senate Bill 313, which established the nation’s second universal education savings account program this year (and 11th overall): the Louisiana Giving All True Opportunity to Rise (LA GATOR) Scholarship Program. Replacing the state’s Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program (SSEEP) voucher program at the conclusion of the 2024–2025 school year, the LA GATOR program will allow parents to allocate a portion of their tax dollars to fund qualifying expenses—such as tuition, fees, and other educational services—for their K–12 students.
Beginning in the 2025-2026 school year, eligibility for the ESAs will be restricted to the prior year’s SSEEP participants, students entering kindergarten, switchers (students that attended a public school in the prior year), and students with a household income below 250% of the FPL. However, the program will expand over the next two phases of its implementation, first to include all students with a household income less than 400% of the FPL and then to universal eligibility. Program participants will be required to receive in-person, virtual, or hybrid instruction (not home-study) to participate in the program and will be subject to a standardized testing requirement.
Mississippi
Mississippi House Bill 4130 successfully replaces the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) school funding formula with the Mississippi Student Funding Formula (MSFF). The new formula streamlines funding streams and includes individual weights for low-income students, English learners, special education students, and other populations.
This new formula is an improvement from the MAEP formula, which funds school districts based on attendance, equalizes a smaller share of formula funds, and uses inaccurate counts of low-income students. Also unlike MAEP, the new formula adjusts its per-student amount annually to inflation, recalculates it completely quadrennially, reconciles excess allocations made to districts (resulting from net enrollment over-projections) via reductions in that district’s aid the following year, and replaces the permanent hold-harmless provision with a less generous, temporary hold-harmless provision (reducing the lookback period to 2024 rather than 2002) until Fiscal Year 2028.
Mississippi also renewed the Equal Opportunity for Students with Special Needs Program (an ESA program for students with special needs) until July 2028 via the passage of House Bill 1229.
Missouri
Missouri Senate Bill 727, signed into law in May, expands the state’s tax-credit scholarship program, the Missouri Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Program. In particular, the bill raises the maximum amount of tax credits awarded to students to $75 million (from $50 million), codifies into law annual increases to that cap (proportionate to the percentage change in the state’s foundation formula funding appropriated to school districts), and repeals the $50 million circuit breaker provision that would have suspended future annual increases. It also raises the household income limit for all non-IEP qualifying students to no more than 300% of the FPL (previously up to 200%) and expands eligibility to the siblings of qualified students who received the grant in the previous year and will receive it again in the current year.
Nebraska
Nebraska Legislative Bill 1329 authorizes K-12 students to enroll in a public school outside their district three times before their graduation (once per elementary, middle, and high school), with exceptions to that maximum. The bill also extends various existing open-enrollment administrative requirements to include and/or apply to the student’s current “enrollment option” school district in certain circumstances.
Legislative Bill 1402 repeals Nebraska’s Opportunity Scholarships Act refundable tax credit scholarship program. In its place, the bill establishes an education scholarship program to pay all or part of the cost to educate an eligible student attending a qualified school.
Eligibility for the program is to be limited to Nebraska residents who are enrolling in a qualifying school and who are also prior, continuing recipients of either this scholarship or the Opportunity Scholarships Act; siblings of an education scholarship recipient who shares the same household; members of a family with a household income not to exceed 213% of the FPL; or first-time education-scholarship recipients that are either entering kindergarten, ninth grade, or the first-grade level offered by a qualified school; switchers from a public school that they attended for at least one semester; or active-duty or reserve dependents transferring into the state.
Scholarships are capped at a cumulative total not to exceed $10,000,000 per year, awarded according to a four-tier allocation priority, and individually capped at the cost necessary to educate the student at their qualified school. They must also be funded in a manner that ensures that the average award does not exceed 75% of the statewide average general fund operating expenditures per formula student.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma House Bill 3386 allows for within-district open-enrollment transfers at any time of the year, up to twice per year, except when the receiving school district is already at capacity for the student’s grade level. However, it establishes that such transfer students can always re-enroll in their resident school at any time. The bill also clarifies that within-district transfers are for a period of one year and may be automatically renewed with the receiving district’s approval or denied (due to the student’s history of suspensions or unexcused absences) at the end of each school year.
Moreover, the bill requires the district board of education to establish a policy for determining within-district transfer capacity, implementing certain enrollment preferences and reserve capacities, denying transfers due to suspensions and/or unexcused absences, and establishing, publishing, and reporting quarterly transfer vacancies. Lastly, the bill establishes reporting requirements regarding the transfers of students with disabilities, as well as appeal procedures for those who are denied.
Oklahoma House Bill 3388 has modified the Parental Choice Tax Credit program. It exempts program credits from state taxation and reclamations of other financial liabilities and debts and extends program eligibility to include otherwise-qualifying students who are expected to enroll in—but are not currently attending—an eligible private school. Furthermore, it prioritizes awarding scholarships to low-income, prior-year recipients and imposes various miscellaneous administrative requirements and changes.
Utah
Utah House Bill 341 requires local school boards that are changing school boundaries to receive within-district open enrollment applications from the parents of affected students for at least 30 days after the change takes effect. It also requires such school boards to provide their decision on the matter, in writing, to those parents within two weeks of the school district’s receipt of the application.
Conclusion
This was an immensely successful year for educational freedom. In 2024, states adopted, simplified, and expanded private school choice programs ) including two new near-universal education savings accounts programs), increased and strengthened open enrollment opportunities, and optimized state education funding mechanisms.
As the year ends, the likelihood of this momentum continuing into 2025 becomes increasingly apparent.
In Texas, for example, Gov. Greg Abbott has publicly signaled that he will have the legislative support needed to pass a school choice program. Similarly, Tennessee legislators cooperating with Gov. Bill Lee have pre-filed legislation (House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1) to enact a universal school voucher program.
Open enrollment reforms are also expected to be proposed in Missouri and Mississippi, as are school finance reforms in Virginia and Alabama.
Looking forward, there is still much work to be done to increase and improve the educational opportunities available to our nation’s children. Fortunately, the educational freedom movement shows no signs of slowing down.