School Choice

Introduction

The North Carolina State Constitution requires the General Assembly to provide “for a general and uniform system of free public schools.” That same document recognizes that “the people have a right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the state to guard and maintain that right.” In the landmark school finance decision Leandro v. State (1997), the North Carolina Supreme Court defined the right to the privilege of education as the right to a “sound basic education.” While all children enjoy those rights, it is a regrettable fact that not all children have access to schools that fulfill those obligations.

School quality varies, often correlating to neighborhood income. For families who live in an area where the public schools are satisfactory to excellent, it isn’t a problem. If, however, they live in an area where the schools are substandard and produce disappointing test scores or an unsafe environment, it’s a big problem.

Families who can afford to pay tuition can access a better education for their children by sending them to a private school. Unfortunately, however, quality educational options are financially out of reach for many families who are unable to afford the costs of private-school tuition or relocating to a better school or district. This reality reflects a fundamental shortcoming of the American system of compulsory public education.

School choice helps remedy this injustice first by restoring to parents the right to choose how and where a child is educated and second by providing resources and the opportunity to access better educational options through school choice programs.

In Hart v. State (2015), the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the state’s ability to fund school choice programs that help parents access educational options outside of the public school system. In the opinion for the court, then–Chief Justice Mark Martin wrote, “[O]ur framers chose not to limit the State from appropriating general revenue to fund alternative educational initiatives. … [P]ublic funds may be spent on educational initiatives outside of the uniform system of free public schools.

Controversial policy decisions made during the Covid-19 pandemic, the content of lessons and instructional materials, and the inability of many public schools to pivot successfully to online educational delivery prompted a greater interest in educational options and propelled the popularity of school choice.

Parents demanded more choices, and lawmakers answered. In 2023, lawmakers removed income-eligibility restrictions from the Opportunity Scholarship voucher program to allow all families to apply. Lawmakers also streamlined the process for charter school applications and renewals by vesting authority over these matters in the newly created Charter School Review Board and eliminating a duplicative layer of review by the State Board of Education. Lawmakers also removed enrollment caps on certain charter schools and gave counties the option to use property tax revenues for charter school capital costs.

These were all significant victories, but there are still more opportunities to empower families by broadening access to educational opportunities.

Key Facts

• In 2013, North Carolina lawmakers approved the state’s first school choice program, otherwise known as the Opportunity Scholarship program. Today, this program helps eligible students attend private schools by providing state vouchers worth (depending on household income) between 45 and 100 percent of the average amount the state spent per public-school student during the prior fiscal year.
• School-choice advocates won a major victory in 2020 when former Gov. Roy Cooper, an opponent of school choice, signed a budget bill that secured federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act money for the Opportunity Scholarship program. The legislation also expanded the program’s original income-related eligibility restrictions to allow more families to apply and lifted its participation caps for kindergarten and first-grade students. Furthermore, it allowed the state’s two virtual charter schools to enroll an additional 3,800 students in total.
• The 2021 budget also delivered a victory for school choice advocates, as it tied the funding level of the Opportunity Scholarship program to a certain percentage of what the state spends per public-school student.
• In 2023, the General Assembly expanded the Opportunity Scholarship program by removing income-eligibility restrictions and replacing them with a sliding-scale system that allows all families in the state to apply but prioritizes families with the greatest financial need by awarding them larger scholarships. North Carolina became the first state in which the legislative and executive branches were controlled by different parties to pass a school choice program with universal eligibility. In 2024, lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto to approve funding for nearly 55,000 students who were waiting for scholarships.
• In 2025, state policymakers in the House and the Senate overrode Gov. Josh Stein’s veto to expand the powers and duties of the Charter School Review Board. The legislation requires the board to recommend and approve all state policies relating to charter schools, review decisions relating to federal funding for charter schools, and approve the terms of each charter school’s written contract, among other things.
• Also in 2025, the General Assembly passed a bill that would have opted North Carolina in to the Trump administration’s federal tax credit scholarship program, which is meant to expand school choice. The program will allow people to make donations to designated scholarship-granting organizations in exchange for a dollar-for-dollar credit of up to $1,700 on their federal taxes. K–12 students who receive the scholarships will be able use them for expenses like tuition and fees at a private school, tutoring, educational therapies, and more. Gov. Josh Stein vetoed the bill.
• Over the past decade, the home school population in North Carolina has grown by 40 percent, increasing from 118,268 students in 2015–16 to 165,243 students in 2024–25. During the 2024–25 school year, there were 101,880 home schools across North Carolina.
• Private school enrollment in North Carolina has increased 39 percent over the past 10 years, growing from 97,721 to 135,738. During that same time, the number of private schools in North Carolina has increased from 742 to 930.
• North Carolina also has a thriving charter school sector. In fact, charter schools were the fastest-growing sector of K–12 enrollment in 2023–24 and 2024–25. During the 2024–25 school year, 153,480 students attended 208 charter schools throughout the state. Demand, however, outpaces supply. Charter schools reported waitlists totaling 74,287 students in 2024–25, a testament to their popularity.
• During the 2024–25 school year, the Opportunity Scholarship program had 80,472 recipients and awarded $432.2 million in scholarships.
• North Carolina also implements the Education Student Accounts (ESA+) program. This program gives eligible special-needs students awards of up to $9,000 per year to use on a wide range of educational expenses, including private-school tuition and fees, educational therapies, tutoring costs, certain educational technologies, and more. Students with certain disabilities could receive up to $17,000 per year. During the 2024–25 school year, the state distributed 4,911 ESA+ awards and disbursed $29.4 million to schools.

Recommendations

1. Increase funding for existing school choice programs and make it more stable and predictable by tying it to a formula.

State law sets out how much money the General Assembly intends to allocate for the Opportunity Scholarship program every year for several years into the future. Since each new General Assembly can change this law, however, those amounts are not guaranteed. Tying funding for the Opportunity Scholarship and ESA+ programs to a set formula that determines funding based on the number of applicants would make funding more stable and predictable. It would also avoid waiting lists, ensuring that all eligible Opportunity Scholarship or ESA+ applicants can receive scholarship awards.

2. Protect private schools’ autonomy and ensure successful implementation of the Opportunity Scholarship program by allowing broad testing freedom for participating schools.

State law requires the Office of Learning Research at the University of North Carolina to make “recommendations for nationally standardized tests for use in third grade and eighth grade” to allow for comparisons of the academic performance of students attending public schools and those using Opportunity Scholarships. The law strongly encourages the office to choose only one test per grade. Restricting the autonomy of private schools to administer their preferred tests could dissuade them from participating in the Opportunity Scholarship program, thereby limiting educational options for students. Policymakers should protect participating schools’ autonomy by allowing schools to select from a broad array of tests.

3. Give students more educational options within the public school system by passing a statewide open enrollment law.

Open enrollment allows students to attend a public school other than the one to which they are residentially assigned. Cross-district policies (also called “interdistrict” policies) allow students to choose a public school in a different district, while within-district policies (also called “intradistrict”) allow them to select a different public school within their residentially assigned district. Some school districts have adopted policies at the local level, but North Carolina does not have any laws on open enrollment at the state level, which limits choices for students.