Education freedom across the United States made several strides in 2025 state legislative seasons by advancing school choice and empowering parents, according to an updated “Education Freedom Report Card” from The Heritage Foundation.
The report card is an online map and tracking tool that ranks each state based on several criteria: education choice, teacher freedom, transparency, and return on investment, as well as civics education. This year’s rankings are being released on Thursday and were first obtained by Breitbart News.
The Heritage Foundation, an organization that promotes conservative public policies, pointed to standout advancements in several states this year, including Tennessee, Louisiana, and Wyoming, which created a new education savings account (ESA) programs, Indiana, which expanded eligibility for its voucher program, and Missouri and New Hampshire for ESA expansions.
“Florida and Texas are the big stories in our report card this year,” added Jonathan Butcher, acting director for the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation.
“Florida is at the top again, a testament to the parent choices available in the state and to the rigorous material being used in civics, in particular,” he continued. “And the new education savings accounts that will be available in Texas are a tremendous victory for children and families. Now, more than half of all children nationwide are eligible to apply for some form of private learning option.”
“These represent tremendous opportunities for children from all walks of life and will shape the present and future of K-12 learning in the U.S.” he said.
The tracker ranks the top ten overall states, as well as D.C., to include:
- Florida
- Arizona
- Idaho
- Arkansas
- Louisiana
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Indiana
- Alabama
- West Virginia
The ten states with the overall lowest scores, per the tracker, are:
- Maine (lowest score overall)
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- Oregon
- New York
- Delaware
- New Jersey
- Illinois
According to The Heritage Foundation, the number of K-12 students in the U.S. who are benefitting from private school choice has “more than doubled,” rising from fewer than 600,000 to 1.2 million between 2020 and 2025. But “much work lies ahead,” the organization notes.
The support for school choice has received a boost from the COVID-19 era, when parents became aware of the fault lines in America’s education system, as well as the indoctrination of impressionable minds with race and gender ideologies. In the following years, tumbling national education scores, combined with bloated federal spending and bureaucracy, have reinforced support for more options in education.
“Three years into the new era of universal private choice programs, more remains to do than has been done — but Americans are finally making progress toward a more humane system of education,” the organization said.
With the Trump administration hoping to shutter the Department of Education (with the necessary assistance from Congress), a federally passed school choice tax-credit program, and left-leaning teachers unions lobbying against both, as well as the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on DEI and gender ideology, America’s education landscape is expected to continue its shift as states either embrace change or double down.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.