Researchers have considered how school choice policies affect student achievement, but less inquiry explores how the organization of schools may change in the presence of choice. This descriptive and exploratory paper analyzes a state representative sample of school mission statements at two time points: before the enactment of choice policies in…

Dual language education is an innovative educational model available for families selecting schools through school choice. While extensive research supports the academic benefits of dual language programs (DLPs) for non-English native speakers and communities of color in the United States, enrollment often does not reflect these populations. This…

This paper examines the characteristics that influence the number of transfers between school districts. Using data on 2018-19 transfers between Indiana's 289 traditional public school districts, we examine observed transfer flows. Model results show that standardized test scores and distance between school districts have the largest impact on the…

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way that families and policymakers view K-12 education. Learning loss is having an outsized impact on students who were furthest from opportunity before the pandemic. And families are increasingly looking for new educational options for their children. For decades, access to educational options…

Indiana has a robust portfolio of high school options, including traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools that accept Indiana Choice Scholarships (private voucher schools). This study identified the type of high school enrollment (type of high school and voucher status) among the student populations of four cohorts (who…

Indiana has a robust portfolio of high school options, including traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools that accept Indiana Choice Scholarships (private voucher schools). But little research is available on the characteristics of students who attend different types of high schools or how their college and career readiness…

Indiana has a robust portfolio of high school options, including traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools that accept Indiana Choice Scholarships (private voucher schools). This study identified the type of high school enrollment (high school type and voucher status) among the student populations of four cohorts (who were…

These are the appendixes for the report, "Do College and Career Readiness and Early College Success in Indiana Vary Depending on Whether Students Attend Public, Charter, or Private Voucher High Schools? REL 2021-071." This study examined how Indiana grade 9 students with different types of high school enrollment performed on indicators…

School choice programs such as vouchers and charter schools expand lower cost schooling options for families. We examine how these expansions affect the prevalence of homeschooling. School choice programs may reduce homeschooling if parents that otherwise would have homeschooled their children instead use a school choice program. Homeschooling may…

Despite Indiana's school choice landscape -- including private school vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, inter-district and intra-district enrollment, magnet schools, and charter schools -- not all Indiana communities have reasonable access to options outside of their traditional public schools. This research explores what lack-of-reasonable…

Purpose: This study investigates parental empowerment, involvement, and satisfaction in charter, Catholic, Christian, and district-run public schools. The analyses of these indicators across school types also differentiate parents who chose district-run public schools through residential selection from those who did not. Research Design: A survey…

Despite the myriad of challenges that families, students, teachers and policymakers faced in 2021, the momentum to transform education did not waver. New opportunities for students unfolded in more than a dozen states through expanded private and public school choice. An additional 1.7 million students gained eligibility for private choice alone,…

Betsy DeVos, the new U.S. secretary of education, is a strong proponent of allowing public education dollars to go to private schools through vouchers, which enable parents to use public school money to enroll their children in private schools, including religious ones. Vouchers are advanced under the rubric of "school choice"--the…

For the past 30 years, America's K-12 education system has experienced an era of expanding educational choice. Although students who participate in private school choice programs and are enrolled in charter schools comprise a small portion of the K-12 population relative to students in district schools, choice is becoming a larger part of the K-12…

Indiana's Schooling Deserts uses Geographic Information System (GIS) software to generate drive-time distances to different schooling types to examine the state's robust K-12 choice environment, under which more than 100,000 families are choosing a school for their children other than one that has been residentially assigned. The maps produced for…