Public Opinion on Education Savings Accounts, School Vouchers, and Charter Schools - Data from Two Survey Series - Paul DiPerna

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Fahsai

Objective: This paper examines how Americans view three types of school choice policies—education savings accounts (ESAs), school vouchers, and public charter schools—using trend and subgroup data from two EdChoice national survey series: the annual Schooling in America survey (2013–2024) and the monthly EdChoice Public Opinion Tracker (2020–2025). ESAs receive the strongest, most stable support, with notable differences by party, parent status, and locality, and effects shaped by question framing and wording.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages81

Reading Time3 h 24 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Policy expansion in 2025

Federal initiatives and program counts

Program on Education Policy and Governance Conference Papers Series Public Opinion on Education Savings Accounts, School Vouchers, and Charter Schools: Data from Two Survey Series Paul DiPerna 1 PEPG 25-02 This paper was presented at the School Choice Tradeoffs and Evidence-Based Policy Making conference held at the Harvad Kennedy School, May 8-9, 2025 Harvard Kennedy School 79 JFK Street, Taubman 220 Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617-495-7976 Fax: 617-496-4428 [www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/](www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/) 1 DiPerna: EdChoice Public Opinion on Education Savings Accounts, School Vouchers, and Charter Schools: Data from Two Survey Series Paul DiPerna ([paul@edchoice.org](paul@edchoice.org)) EdChoice I am grateful to Paul Peterson, Michael Hartney, and Antonio Wendland for inviting me to contribute this paper and participate in the 2025 PEPG School Choice Conference. I appreciate their initial guidance for this paper and for leadership in convening such an important meeting. I would also like to thank and recognize the support of EdChoice’s survey research partners. For more than 5 years Morning Consult has been a valuable partner for the EdChoice Public Opinion Tracker series, as well as developing and testing some of the hypotheses for this paper. Likewise, since 2013 Braun Research has been instrumental for the Schooling in America Survey series. Both partners are essential survey feedback, programming, administration, and data quality. I am especially thankful for the contributions of Colyn Ritter, John Kristof, and Alli Aldis—outstanding teammates on our EdChoice survey research projects. Any remaining errors oromissions are my own. Abstract Objective: This paper examines how Americans view three types of school choice policies—education savings accounts (ESAs), school vouchers, and public charter schools—using trend and subgroup data from two national survey series reported by EdChoice: the annual Schooling in America survey (SIA: 2013–2024) and monthly EdChoice Public Opinion Tracker polling series (Tracker: 2020–2025) . Background: In recent years, education policy debates increasingly have centered on state programs that provide families public funds for private and flexible educational options. ESAs, vouchers, and charter schools tend to have support diverge along partisan, parental, community, and other demographic lines. Perceptions and opinions tend to be shaped to the extent by how policies are described. Despite increased policymaking attention and expanding state programs, recent research is sparse that explores what is known about the long-term stability of public opinion on school choice policies, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic; or recent research measuring the effects of question framing and wording on policy support levels. Methods: This descriptive study analyzes public opinion data using time series trends, selected subgroup comparisons, and experimental results from splitsample wording and framing experiments, including school year–aggregated waves. Results: ESAs receive the strongest and most stable support among three policy types considered – followed by school vouchers and then charter schools. Parents, Republicans, and urban residents tend to give the highest support. Partisan divides are widest on vouchers, with Democrats showing greater variability over time. Wording experiments reveal that universal framing increases support for ESAs by nearly 20 percentage points, while the term “voucher” produces much smaller and inconsistent effects perhaps going against conventional wisdom. Conclusion: Public support for school choice ranges from plurality to large majority depending on policy information and framing. Also, there is broad support across demographics but extent to which also dependent on information and framing, while also exhibiting subgroup differences within a support range. Researchers, policymakers, advocates, and news media sh

FAQs

What school choice policies does the paper analyze?

The paper analyzes education savings accounts (ESAs), school vouchers, and public charter schools, comparing public views across time and population subgroups.

Which policy type receives the strongest and most stable support?

ESAs receive the strongest and most stable support among the three policy types, followed by school vouchers and then charter schools.

How do wording and framing experiments affect support?

The paper reports that universal framing increases support for ESAs by nearly 20 percentage points, while the term “voucher” produces much smaller and inconsistent effects.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Fahsai