The fix for special-needs education is more choice, not less 

As school choice becomes undeniably popular, exceeding 1.5 million students nationwide, the education establishment is scrounging for sticks to beat it with.

One dubious criticism is that school choice is a false promise for disabled students.

Left-leaning outlet ProPublica recently published a profile of a Florida mother, Angela Johnson, whose daughter with special needs has a genetic anomaly requiring a brain shunt and feeding tube.

Johnson acquired a school choice scholarship but was unable to find a private school in her area capable of serving her daughter’s needs.

“Therein lies the catch in ‘school choice,’” ProPublica writes. “Unlike public schools, private ones generally aren’t required to educate students with disabilities. And they often don’t.”

It notes that 8% of scholarships distributed through Florida’s school choice fund for disabled students are returned. The return rate in the general school choice program is much lower – 1%.

A similar story on Texas’ new school choice program highlighted the views of activists who want to paint public schools as loving and virtuous while school choice is cold and elitist.

“That’s a lot of trust and confidence that parents have in public schools,” said Dee Carney, director of the Texas Center for Voucher Transparency. “Public schools accept every child. Private schools choose their children.”

“It’s the school’s choice – not school choice,” summed up Joshua Cowen, a noted school choice opponent and education policy professor.

Pretty damning. Or is it?

It is true that private schools are allowed to set their own admissions policies, and some schools don’t have the financial resources or programming to effectively serve students with special needs.

After all, students with special needs are much more expensive to educate, and private schools don’t have an open pipeline to taxpayers’ pockets.

But public schools aren’t necessarily fulfilling their promise of a high-quality education, either.

According to decades of testing data, students with special needs have consistently scored 30-40 points below average in core subjects. Many parents have also sued their school districts to get the kind of care they desire for their children.

Ultimately, ProPublica – and others’ – criticism of school choice misses the bigger picture.

It is certainly unfortunate when a family with a disabled child can’t find a private school to meet its needs.

But the solution shouldn’t be to axe school choice programs. It should be to do more to promote competition, growth and opportunity in the K-12 landscape – including supporting private schools that tailor their services toward students with disabilities.

Because if these families were satisfied with their local public school, they wouldn’t be applying for school choice scholarships in the first place.

And one more thing.

It might seem like school choice isn’t as widely accessible to students with special needs. That’s not true.

In 2025, EdChoice Senior Research Analyst Jon Kristof examined available data to determine what percentage of actively participating school choice students have special needs.

He found nearly 185,000 students, or 15%, across 21 programs.

“That’s the same percentage of public school students who have disabilities,” Kristof observed.

In Arizona, one of the largest school choice states, students with special needs receive scholarships at a higher proportion – 18% – than their representation in public schools, at 12%, demonstrating that school choice works for them.

Indiana’s education savings account (ESA) program dedicated to students with special needs reached its maximum capacity after just three years in operation. Similar programs in Florida have been known to have waitlists thousands of students long.

We may see growing pains while private school supply catches up with demand. But it is better to invest in the future than waste tax dollars propping up the past.