Colorado’s School Choice Debate Is Increasingly Detached From Reality

By Kevin Hesla, May 2026
 

Colorado’s school choice debate often sounds stuck in the past.

Public conversations about charter schools still frequently rely on assumptions formed decades ago: that school choice primarily serves affluent families, that charter schools increase segregation, or that charter schools exist outside the mainstream public education system.

But Colorado’s actual enrollment patterns and demographic trends increasingly tell a much more nuanced story.

School choice is no longer a niche phenomenon in Colorado public education. It has become a defining feature of the system itself. More than one-third of Colorado public school students – nearly 300,000 kids – now attend a school other than their assigned neighborhood school through some form of public school choice, and more than 136,000 students attend charter schools. Families across demographic groups are actively deciding where and how their children attend school.

At the same time, Colorado’s charter school sector continues to evolve in ways that challenge many of the assumptions that, unfortunately, often dominate political rhetoric.

In 2025-26, nearly one in five Colorado public school students attends a school without a racial or ethnic majority. Importantly, charter school students are 1.3 times more likely to attend a school with no racial majority group than students attending non-charter public schools. In Denver Public Schools, charter students are nearly twice as likely to attend a school with no majority group: 31% compared to 16% for non-charter students.

These trends complicate simplistic (and reductive) narratives surrounding school choice and integration, as critics often continue framing charter schools primarily as drivers of racial segregation. The more important point is this: the distinction between “traditional public school families” and “school choice families” is steadily disappearing.

Open enrollment, innovation schools, specialized options, online supports, and charter schools have collectively reshaped how Colorado families interact with public education. Whether policymakers fully acknowledge it or not, the neighborhood-school-only model no longer describes how a significant portion of families experience the system.

That does not mean equity concerns should be dismissed. Colorado still faces major challenges related to transportation access, housing and zoning segregation, and uneven educational outcomes. School choice alone does not solve those problems. But productive policy conversations require accurately describing the system that currently exists — not the system people may have imagined twenty-five years ago.

Colorado’s enrollment and demographic trends increasingly point toward a more complicated reality: school choice is no longer peripheral to public education in Colorado. It is central to how many families experience it. And in the largest school district in our state, with robust school choice mechanisms, charter school students are significantly more likely to attend an integrated public school.