Free tool · for parents weighing public, private or homeschool
Public vs Private vs Homeschool Scorer
Compare two schooling paths side by side — assigned public, charter or magnet, private, a hybrid program, or homeschooling at home — weighted by what matters to your family. A school choice like this is easy to make unevenly: a feeling about the local school against a glossy tour of a private one, on different days and against different worries. This free scorer makes it a fair fight. Set a weight on five criteria that commonly matter here and rate each path 1 to 5 — every criterion except cost, which the browser scorer computes from the figures you enter rather than letting you hand-rate it, and which you rate yourself on the downloadable scorecard — and it returns one weighted score per path. It also prices the paid work a parent gives up, so a path with no tuition stops looking free. Use it right here in your browser, or download the starter scorecard to keep.
What each path really costs, per year
A path that charges no tuition is not free if a parent leaves paid work to run it. Enter what you pay out after any ESA, voucher, tax credit or aid — then the paid hours that genuinely change. The figures it opens on belong to a fictional example family — overwrite them with your own.
- Forgone pay
- $1,248
- Total household cost
- $4,548
- Forgone pay
- $25,344
- Total household cost
- $28,344
Score the two paths
| Criterion | Weightyours to set | Assigned public school | Full homeschool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost & affordabilityautoComputed from the true-cost block above, forgone pay included | 5.0 | 1.0 | |
| Academic fit for this childPace, rigor and teaching style, for this child rather than in general | |||
| Values, culture & environmentWhether the daily culture and values match your family's own | |||
| Family bandwidth & hoursWhether your household has the weekly hours this path needs | |||
| Social life & peer groupFriendships, peer group and everyday social contact |
Weights total: 70 — they don't have to be exactly 100; the score divides by your total. The cost row is computed from the block above, so it isn't left to a guess.
With only two paths on the board the cheaper one takes 5 and the other 1, so the cost row shows which is cheaper rather than by how much. Add a third path — the full workbook carries five — and the ratings spread out on the real size of the gap.
Results
A clear call — 0.74 points of 5. As a rule of thumb a gap that wide survives a small change to one weight or one rating, though a criterion you have weighted very heavily can still swing it.
Take it with you — free, no signup
Direct download. No email, no account — just the files.
What it does
- Weights five criteria — five of the nine the full workbook scores — by how much each matters to your family, then scores two schooling paths across all of them at once.
- Prices each path's TOTAL household cost: what you pay out after any ESA, voucher, tax credit or aid, plus the paid work a parent gives up.
- That true-cost total feeds the cost rating for you in the browser scorer, with the same 3% materiality floor the paid workbook uses; on the downloadable scorecard you enter the cost rating yourself.
- In the browser, tells you whether the margin is real: under 0.15 points it says the two are too close to call rather than pretending to separate them.
- Opens on a fictional example family where the path with the lower out-of-pocket cost turns out to be the far more expensive one, so you can see the method working.
- Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere, and nothing is saved.
Related reading
Own it, don't rent it
Weighing more than two paths?
This free scorer weighs two paths across five criteria. The full School-Path Decision Helper compares all five paths across nine built-in criteria you weight, plus three blank rows for criteria of your own, budgets the weekly HOURS each path demands against the hours your household actually has, decomposes the gap between the top two so you can see why the leader won, and carries every path out to graduation with inflation and a priced mid-stream switch — a 10-tab workbook you keep (Excel, Google Sheets, or LibreOffice) plus three guides, including two printable sheets for scoring separately.
A one-time purchase you keep and revisit each year as your child changes — the structured workbook between a blank spreadsheet and a generic decision app.
A decision aid, not financial, tax, legal, or educational advice, and not a substitute for talking to the schools you are considering. Confirm tuition, fees, aid, and any education savings account, voucher, or tax-credit program with the school or your state. A weighted score is a tool for thinking, not a verdict. The example paths and figures are fictional. A scorecard you have filled in holds your own household's figures, so clear them before you share or email a copy. Free to use; please don't resell or redistribute.