(The Center Square) – Two B’s and two C’s offset a bad mark related to open enrollment for South Carolina in the ALEC Educational Freedom Index 2026 released Wednesday.
The state is 14th with an overall grade of B, says the American Legislative Exchange Council.
In South Carolina’s $14.7 billion state budget for 2025-26, K-12 education spending is about $4.5 billion. First-term Republican Ellen Weaver is the superintendent of education.
South Carolina has about 789,000 students in grades K-12 across 79 districts and 1,167 schools.
The grades of B were for student-center funding programs and charter schools. The C’s were for homeschooling and virtual schools.
ALEC’s grade in open enrollment was an F – same as a year ago. To improve this, the state would need to “require public school districts to participate in both intradistrict and interdistrict open enrollment, subject to reasonable exceptions like space limitations.” It also would require transparency on open enrollment policies and how many seats are available and make public how many and why students are rejected.
A note at the beginning of the report says all programs and policies are as of June 1 last year.
Florida earned the No. 1 spot for the third consecutive year. Texas’ leap of 15 spots included clearing South Carolina and moving to ninth while Louisiana fell 24 spots to No. 33.
Ten states were A-minus or better and three more B-plus. South Carolina and New Hampshire (15th) were the lone B grades.
In scoring categories, South Carolina got 29 points (11th nationally, a B) in education freedom programs; 9.4 points (12th, B) in charter schools; 10.5 points (tie 16th, C) in virtual schooling; 7.5 points (tie 24th, C) in homeschooling; and no points (tie 32nd, F) in open enrollment.
Education freedom programs could generate up to 40 points for each state; charter schools 15 points based on authorizers, growth, operations and equity; homeschooling 15 points graded on the regulatory environment; virtual schooling 15 points based on state or district availability and approval process; and open enrollment 15 points tied to allowing interdistrict and intradistrict, transparency in transfers and a prohibition on charging tuition to transferring students.
ALEC bills itself as “America’s largest nonpartisan, voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism. Comprised of nearly one-quarter of the country’s state legislators and stakeholders from across the policy spectrum, ALEC members represent more than 60 million Americans and provide jobs to more than 30 million people in the United States.
