Education
Statewide School Choice
THE PROBLEM
The school choice landscape in Missouri is improving, but most students are still limited to narrow district offerings. Many of Missouri’s neighboring states have much richer school choice environments.
THE SOLUTION
Fully commit to a modern school choice landscape: remove barriers to the operation of charter schools in any Missouri school district where demand exists, increase funding for the MOScholars program, ensure that the complementary Federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC) is implemented effectively in Missouri, and require all school districts to participate in statewide interdistrict open enrollment.
Charter School Expansion
Flexibility, freedom from bureaucracy, and the opportunity to innovate make charter schools a valuable addition to any school district. Charter schools can provide new and exciting educational opportunities not available in traditional public schools, giving families meaningful choices. Research shows that on average, charter schools outperform traditional public schools in raising academic achievement.
In nearly every state, charter schools are available to families in every type of community. In 2024–25, there were 8,214 charter schools serving almost 4 million students across the United States. Charter schools are most common in urban areas but are also widely found in suburban and rural areas; approximately 2,100 suburban and 1,000 rural charter schools were in operation nationwide in 2024–25.
Yet in Missouri, charter schools are currently limited to families in just three out of the more than 500 school districts statewide (Kansas City, the City of St. Louis, and Normandy), with a fourth district, Columbia, to open its first charter school in 2027. The reason charter schools do not operate elsewhere in the state is that outside of these areas charter schools can only open with the approval of the local school board. This is effectively a ban on their operation.
The Missouri Legislature can allow charter schools to expand across the state by eliminating language that requires local school board sponsorship. Why does the small handful of individuals running local school districts get to decide who gets the option of a charter school?
Expanding the MOScholars Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program
MOScholars, Missouri’s private school choice program, provides scholarships for students to attend (mostly) private schools. These scholarships are distributed through scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs), which receive funding from two sources: (1) $60 million in annual public funding appropriated during the 2026 legislative session and (2) private donations, for which donors receive full state tax credits subject to certain limitations. The total value of tax credits is capped at $75 million annually.
The recently appropriated public funding for MOScholars is a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done. If all available tax credits are used, the combined public and private funding would total $135 million—enough to provide scholarships for approximately 20,000 Missouri students. While this is great news for the students who receive funding, it accounts for only a small share of Missouri’s nearly 880,000 public school students.
Support for school choice programs is widespread. In a survey of parents taken in spring 2025, about four out of five parents supported ESA programs. If the legislature is serious about supporting this program, it should continue to expand funding to reach more students.
In 2027, Missouri will be able to use the new FSTC to expand access to MOScholars-style scholarships. The FSTC will permit individual taxpayers to take a federal tax credit of up to $1,700 for donations to qualified SGOs, which can use the funds to provide more student scholarships.
Ranking Every State’s Open Enrollment Laws
Interdistrict Choice
In Kansas, every K–12 student can attend any public school in the state, regardless of where they live. Students who are residentially zoned for each school get first priority, and no school is forced to become overcrowded, but the option to transfer is available if the desired school has available seats. School districts must participate in the program, and the Kansas Department of Education audits district capacity every year to ensure compliance.
Missouri students, by contrast, are denied this level of educational choice and are required to attend the school assigned to them based on their home address. The one exception is for students whose parents are regular employees or contractors of a school district. These students may enroll in that district’s schools even if they live elsewhere. This carve-out reserves the privilege of school choice for a narrow group of individuals employed by the school system.
There are many reasons why a family might seek an alternative to their assigned school. The school could be too big or too small, a child may face bullying, or the school might not be able to meet the terms of an individualized education program. Another issue is school safety—new federal guidance emphasizes that students who attend persistently dangerous schools must be provided an opportunity to attend a safe public school.
In 2025, the Reason Foundation graded all states’ public school transfer and open enrollment laws (see map above). Missouri received the second-lowest score of all states.
Missouri students should be permitted to cross district lines to access any public school, and districts should be required to allow students to transfer out and receive students from other districts when they have space. Information on available capacity should be posted on school and district web pages and monitored by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
- Amend Missouri law to remove restrictions on which organizations can sponsor charter schools, which effectively limit where charter schools can open.
- Continue to increase public funding for the MOScholars ESA program and ensure that the FSTC is implemented effectively.
- Allow students to choose public schools outside their residentially zoned districts when space is available.
