The problem addressed by this study was the academic achievement gap of low-income students. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of educators of low-income students participating in the Florida School Choice program and the perceived challenges they face in bridging the academic achievement…

Over the past two decades, researchers have spent countless hours studying the impacts of public charter schools--independently-run, tuition-free schools of choice that serve some 3.7 million U.S. students today. Just prior to the pandemic, studies from Ohio and nationally indicated that charters on average delivered superior academic outcomes…

School-choice policies are expected to generate healthy competition between schools, leading to improvements in school quality and better outcomes for students. However, the empirical literature testing this assumption yields mixed findings. This systematic review and meta-analysis tests this theory by synthesizing the empirical literature on the…

In Italy, parents are free to choose the primary school for their children without restrictions imposed by catchment areas. This freedom of choice, inspired by quasi-market mechanisms, aims to foster competition between schools and raise educational standards. Analysing the case of Milan using regression models and administrative data for the…

Does a school district that expands school choice provide better outcomes for students than a neighborhood-based assignment system? This paper studies the Zones of Choice (ZOC) program, a school choice initiative of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that created small high school markets in some neighborhoods but left attendance-zone…

The expansion of student opportunity through the flexible spending of Education Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) builds in direct accountability to the parents who choose and hold the power of the purse. Families can select different schools and service providers if they are dissatisfied with how their student is faring. But ESAs can also be designed…

The performance of public education in Michigan has been significantly below average across the country for decades (US News, 2019). Lawmakers in Michigan sought to remedy this in the 1990's with the introduction of charter schools into the educational landscape. Throughout the years, there has been significant debate around whether charter…

Against the background of expanding parental choices and declining global birth rates, schools are experiencing rising competition regarding student enrolment. Schools have responded by strategically presenting information about their students' academic achievement and whole-person development orientation in the hope of attracting parents'…

Under section 1001 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESEA), the purpose of the Title I, Part A program (Title I, Part A) is to provide all children significant opportunity to receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education as well as to close educational achievement gaps. The…

Advocates of charter schools hold that the marketization of education compels all schools to be innovative in raising student achievement outcomes. Opponents of charter schools dispute whether the impact of charter schools on student achievement is statistically sufficient to justify taking resources from traditional public schools. Another…

We investigate the effect of changing schools on academic achievement. Using representative data on the educational trajectories of 17,000 Swiss lower secondary students and national assessment data at the end of compulsory schooling, we estimate the potential individual achievement gaps caused by a school change. While the overall effect is…

School choice has been accompanied by an increase in student mobility. Although changing schools can benefit students, mobility is often associated with negative student and school outcomes. This study sought to better understand the relationship between school climate and the likelihood of student mobility across K-8 schools in Detroit, a city…

School choice is spreading across the U.S. at the same time that scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) are stagnant. We examine the association between education freedom and 8th grade student NAEP score levels and gains in states in 2019. We construct the 2019 Education Freedom Index as a composite measure of the…

Despite upwards of 100,000 gifted students possibly being educated at home, research regarding this population is limited. The literature on gifted homeschooling includes topics such as motivations for homeschooling, modalities of instruction, and student achievement and social-emotional wellness. Recommendations for expanding the literature and…

School districts' racial/ethnic and economic compositions are strongly related to average student achievement. Relationships between districts' demographic compositions and average student growth are much weaker, and many believe growth measures are a more accurate indicator of student learning. We seek to understand if the dissemination of growth…