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…

This article theorizes how crises and markets shape the responses of consumers and producer organizations. We advance four propositions: 1) if a crisis requires major revisions in operational rules, less-exit sensitive (i.e., monopoly-like) organizations shall revise to aggregate preferences of organized producers; and more-exit sensitive…

Every year, thousands of students leave traditional, Houston-area public schools for private schools, homeschools, or non-district charter schools. Some of these students eventually return to the public school setting. To investigate this phenomenon of "returners," the researchers followed two types of leavers in a cohort of Houston-area…

The 15th annual "Education Next" survey, conducted in June 2021, yields a host of specific results that reveal one large fact about the current state of public opinion on American education: The public is cautious--extremely cautious. In the presence of a still-circulating COVID-19 virus, a large percentage of parents and the broader…

"Hybrid homeschools" generally operate as formal schools 2-3 days per week. The rest of the week students are homeschooled. These entities therefore share some aspects of conventional schooling along with some aspects of homeschooling and are classified in a variety of ways by their states, local districts, and even their own…

School safety has been widely studied from the perspectives of administrators, teachers, and students in traditional education settings. However, parents' perceptions of school safety have been largely overlooked. Moreover, it is unknown how homeschool parents conceptualize safety in educational settings despite school safety being a known…

North Carolina is home to a growing and evolving K-12 education landscape. The state experienced a 21 percent increase in its public elementary and secondary school enrollment since 2000, with that figure projected to grow by another 4 percent by 2028. The state has garnered attention for its emphasis on individualized education and implementation…

This study examined educational experiences of families under COVID and their schooling decisions in the 2021 school year. Results from a survey of 1743 parents indicate most schools provided educational resources ranging from hardcopy packets to live online instruction. Parents were generally positive about the experience. Parents in private and…

Home education support groups and associations are increasingly becoming hubs for home learning communities to share resources and knowledge. This literature review examined (a) motivations for joining homeschool groups; (b) values and beliefs that led to the formation of homeschool groups; and (c) how the culture of homeschool groups aids in…

Crises have a way of shaking up the status quo and creating space for new thinking. When shocked out of their familiarity, people start to ask questions as to why things are the way that they are and brainstorm ways to make them better. Enter entrepreneurs. They are the people who take those ideas that are lying around and attempt to create…

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…

Unlike previous years of our "Schooling in America" survey project, our researchers are releasing multiple sets of results in a new, chart-focused format. This report is focused on questions we asked about families' homeschooling experiences and their opinions about homeschooling during the pandemic. We also include breakouts to show…

EdChoice and Braun Research conducted its annual survey to gauge the opinions of the American public (N = 1,209) and school parents (N = 1,238) on topics like the state of K-12 education, their schooling preferences, choice reforms and the current pandemic--to name a few. Both survey samples are nationally representative of those respective…

The State of Alaska, by some measures the United States' most rural state, has long supported correspondence schools, a popular school choice option available to all students statewide and used primarily by homeschooled students. This paper first explores Alaska correspondence schools in historical context, and then quantifies capture rate,…

Unlike previous years of our "Schooling in America" survey project, our researchers are releasing multiple sets of results in a new, chart-focused format. This report is focused on the second wave of questions we asked about public opinion on K-12 education during the COVID pandemic. We also asked respondents their opinion on educational…