Where Kansas Stands on School Choice in October 2026, in Plain English

You've heard Kansas "passed school choice." You've also heard Kansas "doesn't have school choice." Both get said at the same co-op table, and neither is quite right. Here is where Kansas actually stands, as of October 31, 2026, with the official record behind each point. Our Kansas homeschool options guide keeps every link in one place, and this article is the short version for busy parents.

The short answer

• Kansas has one private school choice program: the Tax Credit for Low Income Students Scholarship Program. It pays only accredited private schools.
• Kansas has no education savings account (ESA), no voucher and no state money for homeschool costs.
• Kansas will take part in the new federal scholarship tax credit starting January 1, 2027, because the Legislature overrode Governor Laura Kelly's veto of SB 361 on April 9, 2026.
• ESA bills failed in 2023 and died in 2024. Bills to expand the state scholarship failed in 2025 and 2026.

What exists: the state tax credit scholarship

The program has been law since 2014 and is written in K.S.A. 72-4351 through 72-4357. It works through donors, not through the state budget directly. A person or business gives to a nonprofit scholarship granting organization (SGO). Under K.S.A. 72-4357, the donor gets a Kansas tax credit worth 75% of the gift for tax years after 2022, on up to $500,000 of gifts per taxpayer per tax year. Total credits are capped at

What doesn't exist

No ESA. No voucher. No state grant, credit or deduction for homeschool expenses that we could find. KSDE's non-accredited private school page is plain about the homeschool side: you register your school once, you choose your own materials, and the state doesn't supply curriculum. In Kansas a homeschool runs as a non-accredited private school, and the state scholarship only pays accredited ones.

What passed in 2026

The Legislature passed SB 361, a one-section bill that opts Kansas into the federal tax credit for gifts to scholarship granting organizations under Internal Revenue Code section 25F. The governor vetoed it on April 8, 2026. Her veto message said the program "needs to be thoroughly vetted to understand the potential impact on funding for our public schools." The next day, April 9, the Senate voted 29–10 and the House 85–38 to override. It is now 2026 Session Laws chapter 147.

The Kansas Department of Revenue's Notice 26-10 says the law took effect July 1, 2026. The IRS list of participating states for 2027 includes Kansas, as of October 22, 2026.

What failed

• ESAs: House Substitute for SB 83 passed the House 64–61 on March 15, 2023. The final conference version was rejected by the Senate 17–20 on April 6, 2023. HB 2218 (2023) and SB 469 (2024) died in committee.
• Scholarship expansion: SB 87 passed the Senate 24–16 in February 2025 but never got a final House vote. HB 2136, SB 252, SB 386 and HB 2680 died in committee.
• HB 2468 would have opted into the federal credit and raised the state credit cap from
  0 million to

  5 million a year. The governor vetoed it, and on April 10, 2026 the veto stood when the House made no motion to reconsider.

We cover each of these in more detail in separate articles. The point here is the pattern: the Legislature passed the narrow federal opt-in over a veto, and the broader state proposals didn't make it.

What's next

The 2025–2026 session is over, and the bills that didn't pass are marked dead on the Legislature's site. As of October 31, 2026, we found no official notice of school choice bills for 2027. We won't guess. When bills are filed, they'll show up on kslegislature.gov, and we'll update the guide.

What this means if you homeschool

Today, nothing in the state's school choice column pays for your curriculum, tutoring or therapies. The tax credit scholarship pays accredited schools. The federal credit is a donor's tax break that starts in 2027, and whether any Kansas SGO will offer scholarships for homeschool costs depends on federal rules and on each organization. That isn't settled.

What you can use right now isn't called "school choice," but it's real: part-time enrollment in your district's courses and services under K.S.A. 72-3120(h), KSHSAA activities at your resident public school under K.S.A. 72-7121, and tuition-free career and technical courses at Kansas colleges through Excel in CTE. Those are spelled out in the guide.

One family sorting it out

The Brandts homeschool three kids outside Emporia. At a park day, someone said Kansas "has scholarship money now," and Dad spent an evening on KSDE's pages. What he found: the state scholarship only pays accredited private schools, so it doesn't fit their homeschool. The federal credit starts in 2027, but it's a credit for donors, and no list of Kansas organizations had been published. What does fit is closer to home. Their oldest can take a welding course at a community college with no tuition through Excel in CTE, and their middle child wants to run cross country at the district high school. They budgeted for curriculum as usual and put the two real options on the calendar.

(A composite example — names and details are illustrative, drawn from situations homeschool families commonly describe.)

Your school choice checklist

• Don't budget for state money that doesn't exist. Kansas has no ESA or homeschool funding.
• If you're considering an accredited private school, check the tax credit scholarship's income and prior-school rules.
• Watch the IRS page and the State Treasurer for Kansas's federal SGO list. It wasn't published as of October 31, 2026.
• Ask your district for its part-time enrollment policy and its activities rules.
• Find curriculum, tutors and therapists in our vendor directory, and watch dates on our education calendar.
• Compare notes with other Kansas families in our community.

My Learning Source is an independent marketplace and is not affiliated with the Kansas State Department of Education, the Kansas Legislature, the Office of the Governor, the Kansas Department of Revenue, the Kansas State Treasurer, the IRS or any scholarship granting organization. Laws and programs change — confirm details on the Legislature's site and with the agency involved before you act. Family examples are composites, not real individuals.