Charter schools are public schools that run under a contract, or charter, with an authorizer such as a state board, a district or a university. They are free to attend and open to the public, but they have more freedom over curriculum, staffing and schedules than traditional public schools. In exchange they can be closed if they do not meet the terms of their charter.
How many charter schools are there?
NCES counts 8,068 open charter schools in 2024-25 in our data. States without charter schools in the data: Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont.
Charters and districts
In some states, charter schools belong to a local school district. In others, each charter school or network is its own local education agency. That is why charter agencies appear as separate "districts" on our state pages.
Charter schools by state
| State | Charter schools | Share of schools |
|---|---|---|
| California | 1,276 | 12.4% |
| Texas | 1,056 | 11.5% |
| Florida | 734 | 17.5% |
| Arizona | 569 | 23.4% |
| Michigan | 368 | 10.6% |
| New York | 350 | 7.3% |
| Ohio | 339 | 9.6% |
| Minnesota | 309 | 11.3% |
| Colorado | 260 | 13.7% |
| Wisconsin | 225 | 10.3% |
| North Carolina | 213 | 7.9% |
| Pennsylvania | 175 | 6.0% |
| Louisiana | 146 | 11.2% |
| Utah | 142 | 12.9% |
| Indiana | 134 | 7.0% |
| Illinois | 131 | 3.0% |
| Oregon | 128 | 9.9% |
| District of Columbia | 125 | 51.0% |
| Tennessee | 114 | 6.0% |
| Arkansas | 110 | 9.9% |
| Nevada | 104 | 14.1% |
| South Carolina | 104 | 8.1% |
| New Mexico | 99 | 11.3% |
| Georgia | 96 | 4.1% |
| New Jersey | 86 | 3.4% |
| Idaho | 84 | 10.6% |
| Missouri | 81 | 3.3% |
| Massachusetts | 73 | 4.0% |
| Oklahoma | 73 | 4.1% |
| Maryland | 50 | 3.6% |
| New Hampshire | 42 | 8.4% |
| Rhode Island | 42 | 13.4% |
| Hawaii | 38 | 12.8% |
| Alaska | 31 | 6.4% |
| Delaware | 24 | 10.2% |
| Alabama | 23 | 1.5% |
| Connecticut | 21 | 2.1% |
| Washington | 17 | 0.7% |
| Puerto Rico | 16 | 1.9% |
| Maine | 11 | 1.9% |
| Mississippi | 10 | 1.0% |
| Wyoming | 8 | 2.2% |
| Iowa | 7 | 0.5% |
| Kansas | 7 | 0.5% |
| Virginia | 7 | 0.3% |
| West Virginia | 6 | 0.9% |
| Guam | 4 | 8.9% |
Sources
Written by the BCER.org editorial team.