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School choice is no longer an abstract policy debate. Across the country, legislatures are enacting programs that allow education dollars to follow students rather than institutions. The 2026 edition of The ABCs of School Choice from EdChoice documents this shift in detail, cataloging dozens of private school choice programs and more than a million participating students nationwide.
The same data, however, underscores an uncomfortable reality for policymakers: not every policy labeled “school choice” produces meaningful choice in practice. The real dividing line is not whether a program exists, but whether it is designed to operate at scale, with durable funding and broad access, or whether it is structured as a capped, tightly controlled exception that leaves the underlying system largely untouched.
Texas illustrates this tension better than any other state. During the 89th Legislative Session, lawmakers passed an education savings account (ESA) program for the first time in state history. Texas Policy Research (TPR) supports school choice as a policy principle. We opposed the final legislation because it failed the universality test, among other reasons. The program that emerged was narrowed, capped, and bureaucratized, and it was paired with an unprecedented expansion of public school spending that blunted the competitive pressure school choice is meant to create. That compromise matters, and the data helps explain why.
The National School Choice Landscape Shows Rapid Expansion
School choice has expanded quickly over the past decade, moving from limited pilot programs to a core feature of education policy in many states. National data from EdChoice show not only rising participation, but a clear shift toward models that give families greater control over education dollars. Understanding this national context is essential before evaluating how Texas fits into the broader trend.
Education Savings Accounts Are Driving Modern School Choice Growth
The EdChoice report makes clear that ESAs have become the dominant form of modern school choice. ESAs allow families to direct education funds toward a wide range of services, including private school tuition, tutoring, online learning, instructional materials, and therapies for students with disabilities. This flexibility distinguishes ESAs from traditional voucher models and explains why they now account for the largest share of private school choice participation nationwide.
ESAs reflect a broader shift in how education is conceptualized. Rather than treating schooling as a single institution that families must accept or reject, ESAs treat education as a bundle of services that can be customized to fit individual students. States that embrace this model tend to see faster uptake and more provider innovation.
School Choice Participation Growth Is Parent-Driven, Not Ideological
Participation growth documented in the ABCs report is not the product of abstract theory. It is a response to parental demand. The pandemic exposed how little control families often have over curriculum, instructional pace, and learning environments, even as education spending continued to rise. In many states, school choice expanded because parents demanded leverage over how their children were educated.
EdChoice’s data show that when families are given access to flexible, usable funding, they respond. When access is narrow or administrative barriers are high, participation stalls.
Universality Explains Why Some School Choice Programs Scale
Not all school choice programs are created equal, and participation rates vary dramatically based on program design. EdChoice’s universality framework helps distinguish between reforms that operate at scale and those that remain symbolic or constrained. This framework clarifies why some states see widespread adoption while others struggle to move beyond limited participation.
EdChoice’s Universality Framework Measures What Actually Works
EdChoice evaluates school choice programs using three pillars of universality: who is eligible, how flexibly funds may be used, and whether funding is predictable and scalable. Programs that score well across all three pillars tend to see stronger participation and more durable political support.
This framework matters because it distinguishes between symbolic reform and structural reform. A program can be marketed as school choice while still rationing access through income limits, enrollment caps, prior public school attendance requirements, or reimbursement-heavy administrative systems.
Partial School Choice Reforms Create Queues, Not Competition
When participation is capped and eligibility is narrow, families compete with one another for limited slots rather than institutions competing for students. The result is not a marketplace, but a queue. Universality changes that dynamic by allowing demand to shape supply and forcing systems to adapt.
Florida School Choice Policy Demonstrates the Power of Scale
Florida provides a useful case study in how school choice functions when access, funding, and flexibility align. Its experience shows that large-scale participation is not accidental, but the result of deliberate policy choices that remove barriers to entry. The Florida example highlights what universality looks like in practice rather than in theory.
Florida’s Universal School Choice Model Shows What Is Possible
Florida remains the most prominent example of large-scale private school choice. Its combined programs serve hundreds of thousands of students, with broad eligibility, flexible use of funds, and per-student amounts that meaningfully support alternatives to traditional public schools.
The policy takeaway is not ideological. It is structural. When programs are designed to operate at scale, families participate, providers enter the market, and education delivery diversifies.
Texas School Choice in 2025: A Historic Step with Major Limits
The 89th Texas Legislature crossed a political threshold by passing an education savings account program for the first time. However, the final policy reflects a series of compromises that materially limit its reach and effectiveness. Examining how the bill evolved helps explain why Texas Policy Research opposed the legislation despite supporting school choice as a principle.
Texas Passed Its First ESA Program, but Narrowed It at Every Stage
Senate Bill 2 (SB 2) created Texas’s first ESA program after years of failed attempts. As initially envisioned, the program aimed to provide broad access and flexibility. As the bill moved through the legislative process, however, it became substantially narrower.
The final version imposed participation caps, tightened eligibility through prior public school attendance requirements, and layered administrative controls through certified intermediaries and reimbursement processes. While supporters framed these changes as necessary compromises, they fundamentally altered the program’s ability to generate competitive pressure.
Texas Policy Research opposed SB 2 not because it created school choice, but because it created too little of it to matter.
Texas ESA Funding Levels and Caps Limit Competitive Impact
Under the final structure described in the EdChoice report, most Texas ESA participants will receive awards well below the state’s average public school per-pupil spending. Participation is capped at a fraction of Texas’s total student population, even though Texas educates more than 5.5 million students in government-run public schools and hundreds of thousands more outside that system.
The economic implications are straightforward. A capped program funded below monopoly spending levels cannot meaningfully discipline that monopoly. At best, it functions as a pilot. At worst, it becomes a political pressure valve that allows lawmakers to claim reform while preserving the status quo.
Public Education Spending Expansion Undercut School Choice Reform
The Legislature paired SB 2 with House Bill 2 (HB 2), an $8.5 billion public education spending overhaul that expanded teacher allotments, administrative structures, and state oversight. Supporters described this pairing as a balance. In practice, it insulated the existing system from disruption.
School choice is premised on the idea that funding follows students and institutions must respond to parental demand. Expanding monopoly funding while tightly rationing choice undermines that premise. A system cannot be both shielded from competition and disciplined by it.
This contradiction is central to why TPR opposed the final school choice package despite supporting school choice as a principle.
The Texas School Choice Debate Is About Structure, Not Slogans
Much of the public debate around school choice focuses on labels rather than outcomes. In practice, program structure determines whether choice produces competition or simply redistributes limited opportunities. Texas’s experience underscores why universality must be evaluated through design, funding, and scale, not rhetoric.
Universal School Choice Requires Scale, Simplicity, and Funding Durability
The ABCs of School Choice show that universal or near-universal programs scale when they are simple to access, flexible in use, and funded in a way that can respond to demand. Texas’s ESA program legislation moved in the opposite direction by narrowing access and adding friction.
Texas can still become a national leader in school choice, but leadership will require lawmakers to move beyond pilot programs and decide whether education dollars truly follow students or remain tied to institutions.
Texas Cannot Treat School Choice and Monopoly Funding as Equal Solutions
A state cannot simultaneously argue that public schools require ever-increasing funding to function and that competition is necessary to improve outcomes. Those narratives conflict. If lawmakers believe competition matters, then funding must be portable, and participation must be allowed to scale. If they believe the monopoly system must be preserved, then ESAs will remain peripheral by design.
The 89th Legislature attempted to satisfy both camps. The result was a compromise that diluted reform.
School Choice Is Growing, but Texas Reform Remains Incomplete
The 2026 ABCs of School Choice confirms that private school choice is now embedded in education policy across much of the United States. The remaining question is whether states will build universal systems that treat families as the primary decision-makers, or whether they will continue to ration access through capped, administratively heavy programs.
Texas took a historic step by passing an ESA program in 2025. Texas Policy Research opposed the final legislation because it failed the universality test. It limited participation, constrained funding, added bureaucracy, and was paired with massive spending increases that weakened competitive pressure.
Texas can still lead, but leadership will require clarity. School choice must be a system, not a carveout. Until lawmakers are willing to embrace all students, all money, and all options, school choice in Texas will remain unfinished business.
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