Families Aren’t Waiting for Schools to be Fixed

A new report on Arkansas’ ESA program shows families aren’t dabbling with school choice. They’re defecting, and not looking back.

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 schools is in play to a degree that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. For generations, the public school down the street was the unquestioned default; education reformers might argue about how to fix it, or champion competitors like public charter schools, but few questioned its permanence.

That’s changing and probably for good. Parents are no longer waiting for reforms to arrive or bear fruit. They are seizing new opportunities to direct their children’s education, aided by policies that allow dollars to follow students instead of funding systems. Education savings accounts (ESAs) are the leading edge of that change. Now enacted in more than a dozen states, ESAs typically deposit a portion of state per-pupil funding into accounts that parents can use for approved educational expenses—tuition, tutoring, curricula, therapies, even to defray costs associated with homeschooling.

The idea is simple but profound: public funding for education no longer has to mean attendance at a single assigned school—or a school at all A new report suggests this shift is not only real—it’s sticky. The University of Arkansas’s Department of Education Reform has released its second annual evaluation of the state’s Education Freedom Accounts. Authored by Daion L. Daniels, Alison Heape Johnson, Joshua B. McGee, and Patrick J. Wolf, it shows participation more than doubled in 2024–25 to 14,256 students (10,834 private school attendees; 3,422 homeschooling).

To my mind, however, the most telling data point is the program’s 91 percent retention rate into year three. That number suggests that families are not dabbling impulsively with alternatives to traditional public schools or leaving them in a fit of pique only to return. They’re making durable changes. If this trend holds and is replicated in other ESA states, it should set off alarm bells in public school districts nationwide. It suggests that once parents exercise choice, they rarely go back.

Achievement results are respectable: on nationally normed assessments, EFA students scored around the 57th percentile in math and 59th in English language arts. But the bigger story is persistence and its visible effects: As families commit, providers are multiplying. The Arkansas report shows more than 2,100 approved private schools and service providers are available in 2025–26, up from 1,800 the year before. If parents prove loyal to their choices, it will be worth watching whether these new institutions and service providers display the same staying power—evidence that a parallel education ecosystem is taking root.

Because ESAs are still in their infancy, reliable enrollment and persistence data is hard to come by. But early indications suggest that Arkansas is not an outlier. Across states with broad eligibility, families are moving quickly:

• Arizona now counts nearly 94,600 ESA students, a figure larger than the enrollment of Mesa Unified—the state’s biggest district—and enough to place it among the top 30–40 districts nationally.

• Florida serves more than 500,000 students through its universal voucher and scholarship programs.

• Iowa’s Students First ESA enrolled nearly 28,000 students in its second year, ahead of projections.

• West Virginia’s Hope Scholarship supports about 10,000 students this year, with projections to double in 2025–26.

• Utah’s Fits All Scholarship launched with about 10,000 seats and was oversubscribed immediately.

• New Hampshire’s ESA program serves close to 10,000 students and has raised its cap again for 2026–27.

The programs, policies, and mechanics differ from state to state—ESA, voucher, or tax credit—but the pattern is consistent: eligibility drives uptake. When parents are given broad access, many use it.

Critics argue that ESAs mainly subsidize families already in private schools. That may be partly true at the outset, but it misses the larger dynamic. As the Arkansas report suggests, new and durable funding streams invite new entrants: low-cost private schools, microschools, hybrids—much as the charter movement did a generation ago. Said differently, an ESA doesn’t change who is eligible to receive a free public education. It changes who is eligible to provide it.

The Arkansas findings, paired with rapid growth in Arizona, Florida, and elsewhere, show that this is no longer merely a theoretical possibility. The shift is happening—and parents are sticking with it. This summer, Congress created the first federal scholarship tax credit in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Beginning in 2027, taxpayers will be able to claim a dollar-for-dollar credit up to $1,700 for donations to state-approved scholarship organizations. States must opt in, but where they do, new dollars will flow via “scholarship-granting organizations” to schools and providers. The credit is a force multiplier. In states with universal choice, it pulls private philanthropy into the system, helping families cover transportation or fees. In voucher and tax-credit states, it strengthens scholarship-granting organizations and trims waitlists. In states without choice laws, it offers a back door: Governors can opt in, SGOs can organize, and scholarships can flow without new ESA statutes.

Policy debates will continue, including the effects of choice on school districts. But the ship has already sailed with the usage numbers telling the story: families are not waiting for system-level reforms to arrive. Where access is broad, participation follows—and persists. That does not spell the end of public education. It signals a new default. The public purpose in education is shifting from propping up systems to financing learning wherever families find it.

The Arkansas report is an early confirmation: Americans are voting with their feet, and they’re not going back.

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This piece first appeared at the Thomas B. Fordham’s weekly Education Gadfly newsletter.