School choice isn’t to blame for public school closures, study finds

As school choice has grown in popularity, its opponents have been quick to blame it for public school closures.

In 2025, the Southern Poverty Law Center argued that funding school choice harmed “the community.”

“The reduction in funding and closing or consolidation of public schools (due to loss of enrollment) in favor of charters is a direct threat to communities,” it said. “Budget cuts to public schools, along with school closures, mean job losses for community members.”

An anti-school-choice resolution from the NAACP also linked Florida’s passage of universal school choice to closures and cost-cutting measures in the state’s largest districts.

However, policy experts say there’s little evidence that school choice programs directly cause school closures.

Examining data from 1992 to 2020, EdChoice Director of Fiscal Research and Education Center Martin Lueken found no statistically significant increase in public school closures when a school choice program was launched.

“The historical evidence provides little support for the broader claim that private choice systematically causes public schools, especially rural ones, to close,” Lueken writes.

While school choice creates opportunities for students to pursue private education, their absence doesn’t automatically leave public schools in a financial lurch.

“Districts receive local property tax revenue, categorical aid and other funding not tightly tied to enrollment,” Lueken observes. “States also use funding protections that cushion enrollment declines.

“And choice is hardly the only force shrinking enrollment. A Bellwether analysis identifies falling birth rates as the primary driver of declining public school enrollment nationally. Smaller cohorts are entering schools, while migration, housing patterns, charter schools, homeschooling and private schooling matter differently from place to place.”

District officials have cited other factors, such as inflation, underutilization and deferred maintenance costs, as primary reasons for school closures.

While school choice will change the K-12 landscape over time, Lueken argues public school leaders have a responsibility to plan and adapt to those changes.

“Across nearly three decades of national data, the evidence that private school choice increases closure risk is at best weak and inconsistent,” he concluded. “Where effects do appear, they tend to emerge years after adoption, giving districts time to adapt.

“The question, then, shouldn’t simply be whether enrollment is changing. It should be whether district leaders are using the time and resources they have to plan for that change well.”