2026 School Choice, ESA & Education Freedom Accounts Report

Eligibility is broader than a funding guarantee

13 of the 24 records are coded with broad eligibility; that editorial category retains age, residency, school-setting, application and capacity restrictions. Alabama remains income-targeted in 2026–27 even though broader eligibility is scheduled for 2027–28. Louisiana retains phased pathways. Georgia combines geography and prior-school rules; NC ESA+ is disability-targeted.

No record in this selected dataset is coded enacted-but-not-yet-open. That is a sample finding, not a statement that no such program exists nationally. Utah is retained with a qualified implementation status because the current court order and award were not verified.

Award amounts need a denominator

Verified published categories include $2,000 home-education awards in Texas and Alabama, Iowa’s $8,148 full-year and $4,074 half-year awards, NC Opportunity Scholarship tiers of $3,574–$7,942, and disability-related maxima of $17,000 for NC ESA+ and $30,000 for TEFA. These are category limits, not a comparable national minimum/maximum or average.

Arizona uses an individualized statutory formula. West Virginia publishes an expected annual amount and prorated entry bands. Several current awards are unknown in this audit; historical amounts are not substituted.

Home education follows several legal models

Arizona ESA instruction is distinct from its homeschool-affidavit exemption. West Virginia uses an IIP pathway with testing or teacher review. NC ESA+ permits home-education arrangements, while NC Opportunity Scholarship is a private-school tuition award. Iowa requires full-time accredited nonpublic-school enrollment. Oklahoma has separate private-school and homeschool credit processes.

Application activity at the baseline

Iowa’s half-year window opens October 15. Georgia’s final announced student window opens November 1. Florida Step Up new private-school and Unique Abilities applications close November 15. A provider application, an interest list and a payment date are not family application deadlines.

Funding, seats and waiting

Texas’s initial $1 billion appropriation ceiling is not actual expenditure. South Carolina reports its 15,000-seat cap reached. Arkansas distinguishes accepting late submissions from processing them when funds are unavailable. New Hampshire describes potential nonpriority waitlisting; no record here establishes an active waitlist count.

The dataset retains unknown expenditure and enrollment fields instead of summing awards, projected participants or appropriations. Texas’s reported awards and West Virginia’s older participant count are clearly labeled by measure and year.

Different oversight mechanisms

Texas private-school assessments, Alabama school-level testing/reporting, Indiana statewide assessments, West Virginia IIP assessment/review and Wyoming’s statutory account-audit minimum illustrate different controls. Unknown testing/audit fields in other records are research gaps, not evidence of absent accountability.

Court posture changes implementation

Wyoming’s May 14 Supreme Court opinion reversed a preliminary funding injunction without finally deciding constitutionality. Utah and West Virginia entries rely on labeled agency/litigant announcements because controlling current orders were not obtained. Three reviewed matters do not represent every pending school-choice case.

Methodology and reproducibility

Counts above are computed from the same versioned dataset as the database and exports. One record can contain several funding categories; calendar records can contain several entries for a single program. We do not infer program effects on achievement, budgets or access from these descriptive counts.

Full methods, ranked state opportunities and limitations · Official source register

• State / program CSVVersion 18.1.0 · UTF-8 · 2026-10-10
• Application calendar CSVVersion 18.1.0 · UTF-8 · 2026-10-10
• Litigation CSVVersion 18.1.0 · UTF-8 · 2026-10-10
• Complete dataset JSONVersion 18.1.0 · UTF-8 · 2026-10-10

Exports preserve source URLs, verification dates, tracker links and explicit unknown values. CSV cells are quoted and formula prefixes escaped.

License: Worth Fighting Dataset Terms.

Update log

October 10, 2026 — Initial audited release. Added current Iowa half-year window, West Virginia prorated application bands and Wyoming preliminary-injunction reversal. Texas and Tennessee calendar conflicts are documented in their source notes. No automatic future-update claim is made.