Charter School Enrollment Share by State (NCES 2022-23)
Nationwide, 8.0% of US public-school students attend a charter school, but the share ranges from 45.1% in District of Columbia down to zero in 6 states with no charter schools. PlainSchools ranks all 51 state systems by charter enrollment share, drawn from the federal Common Core of Data.
Research period:
Key finding
Across the 48,958,616 public-school students in the federal Common Core of Data, 8.0% attend one of the country's 7,931 charter schools. But that national average hides a huge spread set by state law.
Charter enrollment is highest in District of Columbia, where 45.1% of public-school students attend a charter, and it is zero in 6 states that had no operating charter schools in this collection. The difference is almost entirely about whether and how a state allows charters, not about how students or families behave.
Research question
Charter schools are public schools run outside the traditional district structure, and how many students they enroll varies enormously by state law. Across the 51 state systems, what share of public-school students attend a charter, and where are charters largest and absent?
Methodology
For each state, the figure is the share of public-school students enrolled in schools flagged as charter schools in the U.S. Department of Education's Common Core of Data (CCD) for 2022-23. The share is weighted by enrollment, so it answers "what share of students attend a charter," not "what share of schools are charters." Every state with reported enrollment is included, and the count of charter schools is shown alongside the share.
Share and raw count tell different stories: a large state can run many charter schools yet sit mid-pack on share, while a small system like the District of Columbia can post a very high share from a modest number of schools. Figures are recomputed live from the database on every request, so nothing here is hand-entered.
See the methodology page for source vintage and full details.
States with the highest charter enrollment share
Top 12 by share of public-school students attending a charter (NCES CCD 2022-23)
All 51 state systems, ranked
Share of public-school students enrolled in charters, highest first. Every state links to its full profile; figures update with each CCD release.
| # | State | Charter enrollment share | Charter schools | Public-school students |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | District of Columbia | 45.1% | 126 | 93,368 |
| 2 | Arizona | 20.9% | 566 | 1,103,092 |
| 3 | Colorado | 15.9% | 269 | 871,440 |
| 4 | Nevada | 15.1% | 101 | 480,464 |
| 5 | Louisiana | 14.4% | 150 | 674,456 |
| 6 | Florida | 14.3% | 723 | 2,838,009 |
| 7 | Delaware | 13.4% | 23 | 140,539 |
| 8 | California | 12.6% | 1,283 | 5,787,663 |
| 9 | Utah | 11.7% | 140 | 681,626 |
| 10 | Michigan | 11.3% | 372 | 1,376,868 |
| 11 | New Mexico | 10.7% | 101 | 305,112 |
| 12 | Pennsylvania | 10.2% | 177 | 1,664,154 |
| 13 | Idaho | 10.1% | 76 | 315,098 |
| 14 | Rhode Island | 10.0% | 41 | 135,978 |
| 15 | North Carolina | 9.6% | 206 | 1,544,406 |
| 16 | Arkansas | 9.1% | 103 | 491,340 |
| 17 | Texas | 9.0% | 1,030 | 5,491,723 |
| 18 | Oregon | 8.4% | 129 | 537,619 |
| 19 | Minnesota | 8.1% | 284 | 872,336 |
| 20 | Hawaii | 7.8% | 37 | 166,973 |
| 21 | Oklahoma | 7.6% | 62 | 696,253 |
| 22 | New York | 7.5% | 342 | 2,505,133 |
| 23 | Ohio | 7.4% | 334 | 1,675,943 |
| 24 | South Carolina | 6.5% | 88 | 784,749 |
| 25 | Alaska | 6.3% | 32 | 130,718 |
| 26 | Wisconsin | 6.2% | 237 | 814,921 |
| 27 | Massachusetts | 5.3% | 76 | 918,103 |
| 28 | Indiana | 5.1% | 121 | 1,033,761 |
| 29 | Tennessee | 4.7% | 114 | 994,264 |
| 30 | New Jersey | 4.6% | 84 | 1,354,386 |
| 31 | Georgia | 4.1% | 97 | 1,738,641 |
| 32 | New Hampshire | 3.6% | 39 | 163,884 |
| 33 | Illinois | 3.2% | 134 | 1,844,783 |
| 34 | Missouri | 2.9% | 82 | 887,264 |
| 35 | Maryland | 2.8% | 48 | 885,796 |
| 36 | Connecticut | 2.2% | 21 | 491,941 |
| 37 | Maine | 1.7% | 13 | 166,683 |
| 38 | West Virginia | 1.3% | 4 | 242,956 |
| 39 | Alabama | 0.9% | 17 | 746,604 |
| 40 | Mississippi | 0.9% | 8 | 436,122 |
| 41 | Wyoming | 0.8% | 5 | 89,452 |
| 42 | Kansas | 0.5% | 9 | 478,187 |
| 43 | Washington | 0.4% | 16 | 1,092,149 |
| 44 | Iowa | 0.1% | 4 | 497,853 |
| 45 | Virginia | 0.1% | 7 | 1,253,620 |
| 46 | Kentucky | 0.0% | 0 | 651,902 |
| 47 | Montana | 0.0% | 0 | 146,015 |
| 48 | Nebraska | 0.0% | 0 | 327,234 |
| 49 | North Dakota | 0.0% | 0 | 118,286 |
| 50 | South Dakota | 0.0% | 0 | 141,122 |
| 51 | Vermont | 0.0% | 0 | 77,627 |
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), 2022-23. Charter status is the federal directory flag. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), 2022-23. Charter status is the federal directory flag.
What the data shows
Charter share is set by state law, not demand
The range is enormous: from 45.1% in District of Columbia to zero in 6 states. A state's charter share mostly reflects whether it passed a charter law, how permissive that law is, and how long charters have had to grow. The 6 states at zero are places where no charter school was operating in this collection, so the figure is a fact about policy and timing, not a sign that families there would not choose a charter.
The biggest charter sectors are not always the biggest by share
The states that run the most charter schools by raw count are large states such as California, Texas, and Florida, because a big public-school system supports more schools of every kind. Yet several of them sit in the middle of the share ranking, while smaller systems with concentrated charter growth rank near the top. Reading share and count together avoids mistaking a state's size for its commitment to charters.
What charter share does and does not measure
This ranking describes how the public-school sector is organized in a state. It does not say whether charter or district schools produce better outcomes, which depends on the individual school, and it does not capture magnet schools, open enrollment, or private-school choice. Treat charter share as context for a state's school landscape, alongside the enrollment, staffing, and resource data on each school and state profile.
What this analysis cannot tell us
This measures the share of public-school students enrolled in charter schools, not the share of schools that are charters, and the two differ because charters tend to be smaller than the average district school. Charter status is the NCES Common Core of Data directory flag for the 2022-23 collection, so a state with a new charter law that opened schools after that year will read lower here than today. A zero figure reflects state law and school-opening status, not student demand: several states had no operating charter schools in this collection even where a charter statute exists. Charter share is a measure of how the public-school sector is organized in a state, not a judgment of whether charter or district schools serve students better.
States running the most charter schools
Top 10 by number of charter schools (NCES CCD 2022-23); a different view from share
Sources
- U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), 2022-23: https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/
- National Alliance for Public Charter Schools: https://publiccharters.org/
Cite this analysis
PlainSchools. (2026). Charter School Enrollment Share by State (NCES 2022-23). https://plainschools.com/research/charter-enrollment-share-by-state/