Exploring School Transfers Within Indiana's Primary and Secondary Public Schools

Choice Scholarship voucher program continues rapid growth but remains a small portion of overall enrollment.

By Ted Schurter

August 16, 2024

The number of transfers within Indiana’s schools has increased dramatically in the last few years even as overall enrollment has remained relatively stable. Indiana's Choice Scholarship program, where eligible families apply for taxpayer-funded vouchers to pay tuition at private, often parochial, schools, surged 31% in the 2023-2024 school year, accounting for one of every three transfers out of Indiana public school corporations.

Introduced in 2011 by then-governor Mitch Daniels as an escape route for students in underperforming public schools, the Choice Scholarship program was the largest school voucher program nationally and statutorily capped at 7,500 students. Since then, the program has grown as successive state legislatures eroded eligibility requirements down to their current level: students must be between five and 21 years-old with legal settlement in Indiana and a family income of up to 400% of the amount to qualify for the federal free or reduced lunch program. That equates to $230,880 for a family of four in 2024, well above the state’s $66,785 median household income.

Line chart showing the number of transfers by type - parent choice, Choice Scholarship, public charter or other - from 2018 to 2024.

Transfers have grown from 12% to 18% of total enrollment - the combined enrollment of private and public schools - since 2018. In that time, Choice Scholarship transfers increased from 25% to 33% of all transfers.

Line chart showing the percent change in total enrollment for Choice Scholarship, public schools from 2018 to 2024.

While the annual changes in transfer totals have remained positive, changes in private, public and total enrollment have fluctuated between growth and decline. Private enrollment, which includes all private schools, dipped dramatically following Covid but rebounded strongly and maintained positive growth thanks to the flood of new Choice Scholarship transfers. Its gains were enough to buffer the slight recent losses in public enrollment and keep total enrollment in positive territory.

Understanding school transfers

School-age children in Indiana are entitled to a free public education in the school corporation where they live, their school corporation of legal settlement. Unless they've previously enrolled in public school, home-school students and those who exclusively attend a private school are not included in the legal settlement tally.

In 2024, that count totaled just over a million students within 290 school corporations.

The number of students with legal settlement in a school corporation is constrained by how many students live within its borders. A school or school corporation's enrollment, the number of students attending classes, is more dynamic, fluctuating as students transfer in and out during biannual transfer windows.

Transfer students may move within their own corporation, going from one school to another, or to another school corporation, charter or Choice Scholarship school. The motivations behind each transfer can be as diverse as student personalities. Some seek a better school fit, different educational offerings, improved extracurricular activities, or broader athletic opportunities. Some transfers accommodate the children of teachers who live and work in different school corporations, are the result of behavior or school disciplinary issues, or reflect a preference for religious education.

School corporations set their own policy regarding student transfers, and in some instances, permission must be granted from the school corporations involved.

Illustrating school transfers

Visualizing the transfers from a single school corporation can help clarify the movement and terminology involved.

Legal Settlement:

Students with legal settlement live within the boundaries of a school corporation and are entitled to a free public education there.

Students that attend a private school, or a public school in a corporation where they don't have legal settlement are considered transfer students.

Outgoing transfer students can be categorized based on the type of school they transfer to: public, charter or Choice Scholarship.

Outgoing transfers:

Students may transfer out of their school corporation to another public school corporation.

One hundred eighteen of Western Boone's students chose to transfer to a different school corporation, a rate of 8 students per 100 with legal settlement.

Outgoing transfers:

Charter schools are tuition-free public schools that must accept any student who chooses to enroll.

They administer required annual exams and receive state ratings but operate independently of many state guidelines regulating public schools.

Twenty-three Western Boone students transferred to charter schools, a (rounded) rate of 2 students per 100 with legal settlement.

Outgoing transfers:

Choice Scholarship schools are private schools that aren't required to accept any student but can accept state-funded vouchers for tuition from qualifying families.

Twenty-three Western Boone students transferred to Choice Scholarship schools, a (rounded) rate of 2 students per 100 with legal settlement.

Incoming transfers:

Incoming transfers are students attending a charter, Choice Scholarship or public school corporation that is not their school of legal settlement.

Their attendance may be physical or virtual.

Incoming transfers are counted from the school corporation where the student has legal settlement, not the school they were attending.

For every 100 students with legal settlement, Western Boone added 17 incoming transfer students.

Transfers arrived from 16 school corporations.

Net transfers:

The difference between incoming and outgoing transfers determines a corporation's net transfer and net transfer rate figures.

Using the rounded rates from above, the net transfer rate is 5 per 100 students with legal settlement.

Net transfers

More transfer students depart than arrive in six out of ten Indiana school corporations, resulting in negative net transfers. On average, and excluding outliers, they receive students from 11 corporations while dispersing them to 32 corporations or schools. These corporations tend to be larger, with an average legal settlement of 3,000 students.

The average school corporation with a positive transfer rate (excluding outliers) receive and send students from 12 and 22 schools and corporations respectively. They tend to be smaller with an average legal settlement of about 1,200 students. There are 104 Indiana school corporations with positive net transfers.

Scatter plot chart where circles representing school corporations are colored by their transfer rate status: blue for a positive transfer rate and red for negative. Their position on the horizontal axis indicates how many schools and corporations transfer students depart to; their vertical position indicates how many corporations transfers arrive from.

Explore the transfer rates of Indiana's school corporations: Hover over a school corporation's name; click to see a corporation's net transfer chart.

Where transfers are most common

The presence of charter or Choice Scholarship schools within a corporation’s boundaries often influences its transfer rate. Corporations with more than one alternative are more likely to have a negative transfer rate. Larger corporations with many alternatives are generally located within larger communities and have the highest negative transfer rates.

Forty-four percent of Indiana school corporations had at least one private or charter school within their boundaries in 2024.

Of those corporations, 46% have only a single charter or private school alternative.

Their average number of students with legal settlement is 3,384 and their average transfer rate is 1.

Forty-nine percent have between 2 and nine charter or private school alternatives.

Their average number of students with legal settlement is 7,548 and their average transfer rate is -10.

Five percent have 10 or more charter or private schools within their boundaries.

Their average number of students with legal settlement is 27,006 and their average transfer rate is -12.

They are clustered around Indianapolis and near Indiana's larger cities - Evansville, Fort Wayne and South Bend.

Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS), the state's largest school corporation, has the highest number of charter and private schools within its boundaries at 83.

It has the most students with legal settlement, 49,032 and the second highest transfer rate in the state: -56.

More than 28,932 students transferred out of IPS in 2024 and 40% of them enrolled in a school within IPS' geographic boundaries.

Understanding the outliers

Unless they have a robust online program, most schools and corporations receive most of their transfers from nearby corporations. The average number of corporations schools and school corporations receive transfers from is 13.

Online schools attract students from well beyond their borders if they have them at all. The corporations attracting students from the highest number of corporations all have robust online programs. Many have businesses partners that provide the expertise and infrastructure necessary to both attract and educate students online. The companies benefit from the dollars that follow those students to school.

K12 Inc. is one such business. Among its many clients nationwide are 10 Indiana schools and corporations, including three of the four school corporations that attract transfers from the most corporations: Union School Corporation, Indiana Connections Academy, and Clarksville Community School Corporation. Each of those schools attract students from at least 94% of Indiana school corporations.

Maconaquah School Corporation received transfers from the average number of school corporations: 13.

Small school corporations like Eminence Community School Corporation often have fewer resources and amenities and receive transfers from fewer corporations.

Eminence's legal settlement is 366 and it received 42 transfers from 7 corporations.

By contrast, schools that offer online learning often receive transfers from many more corporations.

Like Eminence, Union School Corporation has a similarly small number of students with legal settlement at just over 360.

However, it receives more transfers, 8,191, from more corporations, 283, than any other Indiana school due to its online program.

Explore incoming and outgoing transfers

The motivation behind student transfers are often opaque to outsiders. Their number and destinations, though, can be quantified. Some schools and corporations send or receive a regular stream of students from a neighboring corporation while others may sporadically send only a handful every few years.

Use the Outgoing Transfers map to view where students from the selected school corporation are transferring to, how many are transferring and how the school corporation of legal settlement test scores compare to those of the enrolled school.

To see from what corporations students to a selected school are transferring, use the Incoming Transfers map.

Outgoing transfers Incoming transfers

Select a school or school corporation from the drop-down menu on the left. Hover over circles for the school or school corporation name; click on circles to view chart.

Explore and download transfer data from 2018 to 2024.

Explore transfer data from 2018 to 2024. Filter by school corporation, enrolled school/school corporation, year and transfer type. Data can be downloaded as csv or xlsx file.

Methodology and notes

This project uses enrollment, facility, test score and transfer data published on the Indiana Department of Education data portal; it was current as of early June 2024.

School district boundary data comes from the US Census Bureau via the Tigris R package. School address data was converted to latitude and longitude using the Google Maps API via the ggmap R package.

School transfer data excludes out of state transfers.

Data cleaning, transformations and workflow available at the project repository.