National School Choice Week 2025 Key Information
Join the School Choice Week conversation!
As you share about the Week, we encourage you to tag us using @SchoolChoiceWeek.
Dates:
National School Choice Week 2025 begins on Sunday, January 26 and ends on Saturday, February 1.
This will be the fifteenth annual celebration of National School Choice Week. The first celebration of National School Choice Week was in January 2011.
Goals & Background:
The goal of National School Choice Week is to raise awareness about the K-12 education options available to families in communities across the country. During the Week, participants also shine a spotlight on the benefits of opportunity in education and providing parents with access to a variety of education environments for their children.
National School Choice Week does not prefer one type of education environment over another. Instead, we invite schools of all types – along with homeschooling groups and families – to use the Week to spotlight their achievements and accomplishments. National School Choice Week is nonpartisan, nonpolitical, and includes traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, homeschooling, and microschooling and nontraditional education.
In 2023 and 2024, more states expanded school choice options than ever before. National School Choice Week is dedicated to providing clarity for families in this evolving educational landscape. To carry forward the momentum of awareness raised during National School Choice Week, Navigate School Choice, a sister project, helps families explore and navigate the diverse range of K-12 education options available through state-by-state school search tools, resources, and direct parent support.
National School Choice Week is committed to assisting the entire U.S. population, and to that end, the Week features a project specifically designed for Hispanic families called “Conoce tus Opciones Escolares“. Getting information about the K-12 system has consistently been challenging for Spanish-speaking parents. This project was established in 2022 in direct response to the needs of bilingual families making educational decisions.
National School Choice Week is a project of the National School Choice Awareness Foundation.
Events & Activities:
More than 24,000 schools are planning community events across the country to celebrate their staff, students, and families and welcome interested parents.
Activities include school fairs, movie nights, capitol rallies, field trips, parades, talent shows, and more.
More than 60 large-scale events with statewide impact are being planned for National School Choice Week 2025. A list of these events can be found at schoolchoiceweek.com/flagship-events-2025/
About School Choice Week:
School choice means giving parents access to the best K-12 education options for their children. These options include traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online learning, homeschooling, and microschools or mix-and-match learning. National School Choice Week is an annual effort that helps parents raise awareness of these options.
A January 2025 survey conducted by the National School Choice Awareness Foundation revealed that more than 60% of parents explored new schools for their children last year, highlighting the continued strong demand for K-12 education options in 2024.
School choice is important because every child deserves an effective, challenging, and motivating education that inspires them to be successful and achieve their dreams. However, children learn in different ways and have different talents, skills, and challenges. What might be a good school for one student might not be a good fit for another child. School choice allows parents to identify the best learning environments for their individual children.
Across the country:
In 2024 states fully embraced school choice, expanding options across traditional public, charter, magnet, private, online, home education, and nontraditional learning options. The push for school choice gained momentum due to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and parents want to keep making active choices about their children’s education.
The school choice movement has been gaining momentum for over 30 years, and today, nontraditional environments like homeschooling and microschooling have become among the fastest-growing forms of education. This trend underscores parents’ strong desire to find schools that best meet the needs of their children.
45 states allow the creation of public charter schools. There are currently more than 7,800 charter schools in the U.S. serving about 3.7 million children.
All 50 states allow for the creation of magnet schools, which are theme-based public schools focusing on subjects such as math, science, technology, or arts. There are more than 4,000 magnet schools serving 3.5 million students.
All 50 states have private school options for families. In 32 states, parents can access state-sponsored private school scholarships, education savings accounts, or tax deduction programs. Combined, these programs benefit almost 1 million students.
36 states offer full-time, free online learning options for grades K-12.
All 50 states provide parents with the freedom to homeschool their children.
Microschools currently serve an average of 16 students. Of these, 85% serve students ages 5-11, 66% serve students ages 12-14, and 16% serve students ages 15-18.
