Open enrollment in public schools is a form of school choice that allows students to attend schools other than the one assigned to them by their school district. Though often less visible than policies such as charter schools, vouchers, and education savings accounts, K-12 open enrollment is rising in popularity across the nation, and 73 percent…

Despite receiving little academic attention, open enrollment has the greatest potential among school choice policies to transform the governance of local school districts because all student transfers occur within the public school system, meaning that families and governance structures in two (or more) school districts are impacted by…

We survey 137 charter school administrators and 129 board members and find that U.S. charter school internal controls are perceived to be relatively strong overall. However, board independence, board communication of internal control responsibilities to school personnel, lines of communication between the board and school personnel, and reporting…

Purpose: In Arizona's mature, market-based school system, we know little about how school leaders make meaning of school choice policies and programs on the ground. Using ethnographic methods, the author asked: How do school leaders in one Arizona district public school and in its surrounding community, which includes a growing number of…

This article conducts a fiscal analysis of 10 tax-credit programs in seven states. In total, the 10 programs in the present study represent 90% of all scholarships awarded in tax-credit scholarship programs today. The analysis employs a set of cautious assumptions about switcher rates and students who receive multiple scholarships to generate a…

School choice researchers have used a range of measures to capture competition between schools, but few have assessed the relative utility of these different measures. Using district-level transactional data, we analyzed the relationship between nine measures of school competition and inflows and outflows of students to and from Arizona school…

Arizona's "Wild West," free-market education approach via school-choice policies reflects the expansion of neo-liberal reforms, which emphasize private provision and governance of public services once markets are established. Indeed, charter schools, tax credit programs for public (state) and private schools, inter-district open…

Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos wants to privatize American education using charter schools, vouchers, tax credit scholarships, education savings accounts, and portable federal funds. Court and legislative decisions are facilitating these ends. Understanding the school choice agenda and its fiscal, academic, and legal aspects can help…

In the United States, long-standing school choice policies and practices in Arizona have developed into a market-based system of schooling for many residents in the state, especially in the larger cities. In this study, I analyze qualitative data gathered from school leaders and parents in one Arizona district public school who discussed marketing…

In the past 20 years, both school choice policies and dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs have proliferated across the US. This project examines the intersection of the two trends, examining how school choice policies have shaped DLBE at the district, school, and program level, through the eyes of 22 public school administrators in…

A key goal of school choice policies is to generate competition between schools, which should theoretically drive school leaders to improve their programs to attract and retain students. However, few studies examine how principals actually perceive and define competition. This article empirically examines school leaders' conceptions of competition…

Purpose: School choice policies are expected to generate competition leading to improvement in school practices. However, little is known about how competition operates in public education--particularly in charter schools. This paper examines charter-school leaders' competitive perception formation and the actions taken in response to competition.…

I introduce the concept of parental accountability by examining how parents understand and cope with what I characterize are pressures fostered by the long-standing public-school choice market in Arizona. Parental accountability refers to the sensemaking, experiences, and consequences that are related to decision-making in a school choice…

In this article, based on an ethnographic study in Sundale City, Arizona, I use an interpretive and anthropological approach to policy analysis to highlight how social actors interpreted the national charter school debate to enact local school choice policy development in their everyday lives. Specifically, findings from this study provide a…

Despite the plethora of schooling options in Indigenous communities, the public policy debate, research, and discourse on school choice is almost entirely absent a specific engagement with how school choice intersects issues relevant to American Indian youth and tribal nations. This article suggests that Indian Country is an important and unique…