This paper presents empirical evidence on kindergarten admission preparation services in Hong Kong. Parents increasingly turn to tutoring companies for a range of services, such as social skills training, portfolio editing, mock interviews, and parental consultation. We used qualitative methods to capture the views of parents, teachers, tutors,…

In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court held in "Carson v. Makin" that Maine violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by excluding religious schools from a private-school-choice program--colloquially known as "town tuitioning"--for students in school districts without public high schools. Writing for the majority,…

This study examines the value priorities of Chinese parents regarding their children's education in globally competitive context. Although Chinese parents are often viewed as being excessively controlling of their children and preoccupied with their academic performance, research indicates that contemporary Chinese families hold diverse beliefs…

We conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of providing information to families as they choose schools. Likely applicants to prekindergarten, kindergarten, and ninth grade were assigned to one of three groups. A "growth" group received lists (via U.S. mail, email, and text message) of the highest performing schools…

This article presents a meta-ethnography (Urrieta Jr and Noblit (eds), Cultural constructions of identity: meta ethnography and theory, Oxford University Press. 2018. https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2102/10.1093/oso/9780190676087.001.0001) of school choice across education sectors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. A site of intense contention and experimentation around…

In the last decade, the number of public school students in the United States experiencing homelessness has more than doubled. Research shows that school enrollment processes are particularly onerous for families experiencing homelessness; yet, school choice and enrollment policies are rarely designed with the type of flexibility needed to be…

This community-based participatory research study examined the perspectives of parent participants in an organized parent network in Detroit seeking the best school options for their children entering Kindergarten within city boundaries. Their residency and school choices have emerged against the grain of public schools that have racially charged…

Critics of school choice claim support for educational options was an outgrowth of racist, segregationist views following the U.S. Supreme Court's Ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. In this paper, I examine these claims by analyzing the development of the public school system in the United States and the historical records from Citizens for…

Chile is known for universal school choice policies and a high level of economic segregation. In part, segregation has been linked to selective school admission policies. Chile implemented a centralized school admission system (New School Admission System), where PK-12 schools must accept any applicant, and lottery assignment is used for…

This article analyses the narratives and counter-narratives which characterised the struggle between the Chicago Public School Board (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU) preceding the 2019 Chicago teachers' strike. This was an extraordinary event which has received little scholarly attention. The paper explores the types and uses of the…

How are patterns of segregation related to families' engagement in public-school choice policies across U.S. metropolitan areas? This article examines how segregation in urban public schools and the spatial mismatch between school-age children and relatively high-performing schools relate to the shares of Black, Hispanic, and White students…

I calculate the cost-effectiveness of private schools participating in school voucher programs, independent charter schools, and district-authorized charter schools, compared to traditional public schools in Wisconsin for the 2017-18 school year. I calculate cost-effectiveness by dividing the Accountability Report Card score for each school by the…

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically disrupted the functioning of U.S. public schools, potentially changing the relative appeal of alternatives such as homeschooling and private schools. We study changes in families' choices of school sector using longitudinal student-level administrative data from Michigan and nationally representative data from the…

Conventional wisdom suggests that evangelical Christians, often among the most vocal advocates of school choice efforts in the U.S., are promoting choice out of a sense of frustration with public schools and perceived bias against religion. Research by Marilyn Anderson Rhames, however, suggests that evangelicals are no more concerned about…

Parents often select schools by relying on subjective assessments of quality made by other parents, which are increasingly becoming available through written reviews on school ratings websites. To identify relationships between review content and school quality, we apply recent advances in natural language processing to nearly half a million…