Jay P. Greene’s new report from the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research, The Education Freedom Index, develops a composite measure of education freedom for each state by combining the state’s ranking on each of the following education options:
- availability of charter school options;
- availability of government assisted private school options (e.g. vouchers);
- ease of choosing to homeschool one’s child;
- ease of choosing a different public school district by relocating; and
- ease of sending a child to a different public school district without changing residence.
Those options vary enormously from state to state. For example, Washington state has no charter school law; Wyoming has had a weak charter school law since 1995 but has no charter schools; and Arizona has the nation’s strongest charter school law and has more charter schools than any other state.
