Public K-12 education is a one-size-fits-all system that cannot meet the diverse needs of students. When parents choose a school, they look at several criteria unique to their situation and make trade-offs between their preferences based on their needs. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors influencing parents to enroll their…

Although the Texas economy is racing ahead at full speed, state K-12 education has stalled. One major obstacle has been the claim by opponents of school choice in Texas that giving families more education options via education choice policies would harm or even destroy rural district schools. These concerns, even if understandable, are not based…

School choice is expected to generate competition and thereby lead to organizational improvements. Using teachers' original survey responses, this study uses the market culture within the competing values framework and finds substantial variation in how rural schoolteachers perceive competitive pressure and school climate. When we restricted our…

This implementation guide was developed to assist states that want to give more families access to needed educational opportunities and the ability to customize their children's learning. Surging enthusiasm among voters and policymakers means more states are likely to launch Education Scholarship Account (ESA) programs in the immediate future. The…

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…

Every child deserves the right to attend a school that can best meet his or her individual learning needs. Where the child lives should not be a limiting factor, and no one school is the best fit for every child who just happens to live nearby. Education-choice policies have the potential to expand education options for students in rural areas.…

Intra-district choice policy is a mechanism that provides parents the opportunity to apply to send their children to a portfolio of schools within a traditional school district in which the family resides by allowing students to transfer out of their assigned campus based on attendance zone. The impact of such policy has not been examined in the…

This critical ethnography utilizes critical policy analysis and a theoretical understanding of neoliberal racism to examine the practiced reality of school choice in a public, under-resourced, and historically underperforming neighborhood elementary school attended predominantly by Latina/o/x students. Despite improvement initiatives that resulted…

Rural students in Arizona enjoy far more education choice options than rural students in any other state. Education has flourished in rural areas under Arizona's robust choice environment just as much as in the remainder of the state. The data could not be clearer: Rural students with expanded opportunities thrive, as do their teachers and…

While U.S. voters delivered a significant change in the 2024 federal elections, they opted for steady leadership at the state level. No state board of education shifted in partisan control, and only five seats saw a shift in political party out of 27 races that were contested in the general election. This policy update looks at the results of…

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…

Classical and Christian education has proliferated across education sectors over the last decade. As a result, school leaders must implement these timeless philosophies of education and navigate such high demand. This dissertation seeks to equip relevant parties with research about what drives their skyrocketing enrollment and how to support…

Purpose: The purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to determine the degree to which school choice was related to the academic achievement of Texas high school students. Schools of choice were compared to neighborhood high schools in terms of their students' passing rates in the standardized End-of-Course (EOC) exams in English I and…

The University-Model school incorporates private school and homeschool methods within a Christian school experience. Parents receive the title of "co-instructors" as they partner with teachers in educating their child. This phenomenological study explored the elements that influenced parents' choice when selecting a school. Simon's 1955…

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…