Wins keep pouring in for school choice in red states. Currently, seven states have enacted universal or near-universal school choice into law: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Utah, and West Virginia.
Arizona became the front-runner in 2022 by passing the legislation under Gov. Doug Ducey, which made all students eligible in the first year. Some of the other states’ universal school choice laws include multi-year rollout phases.
The momentum is continuing in 2023 with historical achievements advancing school choice in several other red states.
Indiana
Indiana passed a budget this session that will expand eligibility for the state’s Choice Scholarship program. The program was initially created by former Gov. Mitch Daniels in 2011 and was the first school voucher program in the country. The 2023 budget bill increased eligibility from 300 percent of the federal income requirement for free and reduced lunch to 400 percent, which in hard numbers is approximately $220,000 for a family of four.
Other additional prior requirements were also removed. While not quite universal, only about 3.5 percent of Indiana families won’t be eligible under the newly expanded income allowance. The bill also included an expansion of the existing tax-credit scholarship by removing the income eligibility limit completely.
But Indiana’s school choice efforts didn’t stop there. The budget bill additionally supports charter schools by allowing them to receive increased funding from local taxes in certain counties. In addition, it created the Career Scholarship Account, providing students with apprenticeships or similar work-learning programs, with $5,000 to allocate
