The purpose of this action research study was to investigate and improve the school choice experience for students in a large urban school district on the East Coast. Participants in Cycle 1 were comprised of middle and high school staff, and data was collected via surveys, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. Action steps included…

Researchers from across the country have published at least 188 empirical studies on the effectiveness of private school choice programs. The "EdChoice Study Guide" is an annually updated guide to the available research on private school choice programs in America. In this guide, one can learn what the body of rigorous research says…

According to the US Census data (2023), since the COVID-19 pandemic, more families are choosing to homeschool their children, the rate of white homeschooled children increased from 5.7% in the spring of 2020 to 9.7% in the fall of 2020. For Asian children, homeschooling rates increased from 4.9% to 8.8% during this same time. There was an overall…

This brief explores the characteristics of the high schools that newcomer students choose to attend in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Using data from the 2007-2008 through 2018-2019 school years, the study compares the high school enrollment patterns between newcomer students who attended Las Americas, a school dedicated to…

This article employs critical discourse analysis of the Spear's Schools Index of 'the best private schools in the world', the first such global ranking of schools, to understand representations of elite education in globalised societies. It argues that the Index is a powerful text that exemplifies a global gaze -- an imagined perspective from…

School choice policy in China aims to achieve educational equity by limiting school choice. Synchronous Admission Reform (SAR hereafter) is a recent school choice reform in China, which continues to limit parents' autonomy and strengthen the equal distribution of school resources. This study explores Chinese middle-class parents' (n = 21) justice…

This study offers a comparative examination of desegregation policy reforms in Belgium, Chile, and the Netherlands, addressing equity reforms to universal school choice systems. Through an analysis of the reform trajectories, we explore the evolution of policies, the causal mechanisms of change, efforts to institutionalize policies, and the…

In this dissertation, I study some of the factors that determine schooling decisions in middle-income economies in Latin America. In the first chapter, I examine the impacts of a large-scale program in Colombia that installs water treatment facilities in rural schools. To identify causal effects on student and community outcomes, I leverage…

This paper explores how special educational needs (SEN) and social class can become intertwined in post-primary school choice in Ireland. The paper draws on data generated during a three-year ethnographic study of a DEIS school. Data are analysed using Holland et al.'s (1998. Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds. Boston, MA: Harvard University…

Departing from mainstream accounts of the post-Katrina New Orleans state takeover and the more recent "unification" of schools under local governance, this case study utilizes the plantation (Hartman, 1997; Woods, 1998, McKittrick, 2011) as a theoretical device and the silenced archive (Trouillot, 2015) as a method of inquiry to better…

In the ever-shifting world of school choice, what began as a homegrown charter-school network's small experiment in microschooling stands out as unique -- and as a uniquely promising model for replication. Gem Prep, a network of seven brick-and-mortar K-12 charter schools in Idaho, anchored by a longstanding and high-performing online school,…

This community-based research study examined the perspectives of African American parents of middle-class economic status who participated in a social network pertaining to school choice decisions during the pandemic era of virtual schooling. Their residency and school choices emerged against the grain of urban schools that have racially charged…

The study, conducted amidst the war in Ukraine in 2023, assesses the impact of schools' decisions on families' choices upon returning to the country. It involves surveying and analyzing data from interviews with parents of a Ukrainian private school. Findings highlight factors like child-centric approaches, fostering independence, and transparent…

Should religious schools be an option? Should they receive public funding? Are they bad for community cohesion? What should we make of the charge that they indoctrinate? How should they be regulated? People disagree on the answers to these questions. Some maintain that religious schools should not be permitted. If parents want to raise their…

"Brown v. Board of Education" held that the educational systems of seventeen states that mandated segregated schools violated the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection. The decision helped set off the civil rights revolution. However, after so many years of backlash, schools of the South are dramatically less segregated than what…