For more than two decades, tax-credit scholarship (TCS) policies have helped American families provide their children with the learning environment that meets their individual needs. Now available in 19 states, nearly 300,000 students nationwide use tax-credit scholarships to attend the school of their family's choice. TCS policies create an incentive for taxpayers to contribute to nonprofit scholarship organizations that aid families with tuition and, in some states, other K-12 educational expenses. As with other policies, their ultimate success or failure depends greatly on how they are designed. This paper explores the central design features of TCS policies--such as eligibility, the tax credit value, credit caps, and academic accountability provisions--and outlines the different approaches taken by the TCS policies in each state. The paper also offers suggestions regarding each feature for policymakers who want to design a TCS policy that most likely to succeed at its central purpose: empowering families to provide their children with the education that works best for them. To that end, the paper recommends designing each policy element in such a way that they maximize the incentive that taxpayers have to contribute to scholarship organizations, maximize the number of families that can benefit from the scholarships, and maximize the freedom and flexibility that scholarship organizations have to serve those families. A summary of these suggestions can be found in the conclusion. Finally, the appendix offers policymakers a wide variety of additional resources, including model legislation, parent satisfaction and public opinion surveys, research of fiscal effects, various policy briefs on tax-credit scholarships, information about the constitutional landscape, and public relations resources. [Introduction by Theodor Rebarber. Foreword by Kendra Espinoza.]