The Voluntary Public School Choice program supports States and school districts in efforts to establish or expand a public school choice program. The Department makes competitive awards to State education agencies, local education agencies, or partnerships that include both, and other public, for-profit or nonprofit organizations. In granting awards, the Department gives priority to applications that: (1) provide the widest variety of choices to students in participating schools; (2) would have the greatest impact in allowing students who attend low-performing schools to attend higher-performing schools; and (3) propose partnerships to implement an inter-district approach to providing students with greater public school choice.
Grantees may use their funds to: (1) plan and design a public school choice program (for up to one year); (2) make tuition transfer payments to the public schools that students choose to attend; (3) enhance capacity-building activities in high-demand public schools allowing them to serve greater numbers of students (except that program funds cannot be used for school construction); (4) carry out public information campaigns to inform parents and students about public school choice opportunities; and (5) pay other costs that are allowable and reasonably necessary to implement a public school choice program. Student participation must be voluntary. If more students choose to participate in a program than can be accommodated, the grantee must select students to participate on the basis of a lottery. Grantees may use up to 5 percent of their allocations for administrative expenses. Grant funds can be used to provide students selected to participate in the program with transportation services or the cost of transportation to and from the public elementary schools and secondary schools, including charter schools that the students choose to attend under the program. The estimated size of funding for this program is $1,000,000,000 annually.

The statutory language pertaining to transportation provisions within this program is found within the following citation(s): 

20 U.S.C.A. § 7225a

http://www.ed.gov/programs/choice/index.html