As states across the nation have enacted school-choice programs to help families send their children to private schools, surveys show parents are highly satisfied with the programs and students are excelling academically.

A recent West Virginia survey explored the opinions of parents whose children benefit from the Hope Scholarship Program, which helps families pay for private-school tuition and other education expenses.

More than 96 percent of respondents said they were either “very satisfied” with the West Virginia program (74.24 percent) or “satisfied” (21.16 percent). Only six respondents out of 893 surveyed, less than 1 percent, said they were unsatisfied.

When asked why they chose to use the Hope Scholarship Program, 34 percent of parents said they wanted to provide a religious-based education for their child, while 14 percent had concerns about public school curriculum. Nearly 8 percent of parents had concerns regarding the influence of other students and adults on their child, nearly 5 percent had public-school bullying concerns, and 3 percent had public-school safety concerns. Nearly 6 percent were seeking smaller class sizes for their children, and more than 5 percent said their child needed additional services/support not available in public school.

The survey report included comments from several West Virginia parents.

“We are a middle-class working family. The Hope Scholarship helps aid us in giving our child a Christian-based private school education,” one parent wrote. “This is important to us in this ever-changing world that we are living in and the changes that have occurred in the public school system. We are thankful for the Hope Scholarship and pray that it continues to help our family and others.”

“Our family is so incredibly thankful for the HOPE Scholarship,” wrote another West Virginia parent. “With this help, we are able to provide a good education for our daughter while also being able to pay other bills.”

“We are completely satisfied with the program,” wrote another parent. “Having had no raise in my salary since 2018, this program has allowed us to continue to provide a Catholic education for our child when our budget has been at its tightest.”

“Both of my kids and myself have had nothing but a great experience with the Hope scholarship! I really feel like it is such an amazing opportunity for kids in WV,” wrote another parent. “Some of these children may not be able to afford education opportunities without the scholarship. I am hoping the scholarship continues and is able to bless even more families.”

A similar review in Arkansas found that state’s Education Freedom Accounts school-choice program is providing academic benefits to participating children.

On average, the report found that Arkansas Education Freedom Account students scored at the 57th percentile in math and 59th percentile in English Language Arts in the 2024-2025 school year, “meaning they outperformed 57% of students nationwide in math and 59% in ELA on nationally norm-referenced assessments.”

For the 2024–25 school year, each Arkansas Education Freedom Account provided most families with $6,856 per student.

On a scale of one to five, surveyed Arkansas parents gave administration of the Education Freedom Accounts program a 4.3, the report noted.

The West Virginia and Arkansas programs are similar to the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit, which provides a refundable tax credit of $5,000 to $7,500 per child to pay for private-school tuition. The largest tax credits go to those with the lowest incomes, and families with income of less than $150,000 per year are prioritized.

Even though the maximum $7,500 credit is far less than the $15,111 in per-pupil revenue provided to Oklahoma public schools, the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit program has allowed 42,012 students to attend private schools in the ongoing 2026-2027 school year, according to the most recent report from the Oklahoma Tax Commission. The majority of those students come from low-income or middle-class families.