This is the second edition of "The 123s of School Choice." This annual publication is designed to be a one-stop shop for all the existing research on private school choice in the United States. This year's edition is updated with the research published since the last edition. Since the first modern-day voucher program launched in…

Purpose: Much justification for third sector involvement in education advances from the notion that attributes from business and non-profit fields could benefit state-run public schools. The purpose of this paper is to explore this issue by examining theoretical underpinnings and expectations for third sector participation in public education…

For over 150 years, the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) has been committed to developing and advocating for high-quality school systems for students of color and low-income students throughout the South. Policymakers, including those both elected or appointed to critical state and local positions, maintain tremendous influence over the quality…

This exploration of Phi Delta Kappan's archives shows how the magazine has covered questions related to the purposes, governance, and funding of the public schools. Articles have discussed the role of schools in a democratic society, how schools should relate to the public, whether public funds should be diverted to private and religious schools,…

This research explores the school funding system in post-Soviet Georgia. The research aimed to answer the following research questions: (1) Does the voucher system promote cost effectiveness, and does increased funding improve the academic achievements of schools?; (2) To what extent does the school voucher funding system promote freedom of school…

This research brief is Part I of a four-part series that studies the implementation and impact of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) decision to decentralize in the 1990s. This first part describes how decentralization was enacted in HISD. It examines the implementation of decentralization at HISD. The process that HISD originally…

This report explains how Michigan could pursue a flexible funding program that would give learners greater agency, especially for middle-school and secondary students and their families. Charting a path to complete a diploma, every student would be allowed to use a portion of their per-pupil allotment to "purchase" courses from schools…

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,…

In 2013, Wisconsin's legislature added a statewide voucher program to the existing voucher programs in Milwaukee and Racine. The state expanded the statewide program in 2015 and changed the funding mechanism of the program so that its cost was borne by local school districts. The program is already distributing tens of millions of dollars to pay…

The present paper uses a rich dataset based on naturally-occurring lotteries for 68 new small non-selective high schools in New York City, which we refer to as small schools of choice (SSCs), to address two related questions: (1) What high school features are promising levers for increasing graduation rates for disadvantaged students? and (2) What…

We examine how low-income parents who apply for North Carolina's Opportunity Scholarship program navigate major obstacles to their full participation in this means-tested private school choice program. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study draws upon administrative data from the state agency that oversees the program, surveys of every…

Today, nearly all states either offer or allow digital learning in some form, with instruction provided by a variety of providers. This instruction typically takes one of three forms: (1) Full-time virtual schools: Students take their entire course load online via an independent, charter, or district-sponsored program; (2) Blended learning models:…

The definition of public education is changing rapidly and radically in our current political landscape. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the debate over publicly funded school voucher systems, which direct taxpayer funds to parents to offset the cost of tuition at the private schools of their choice. Tina Cheuk and Rand Quinn address how…

In 2014, Florida became the second state to enact education savings accounts (ESAs), a relatively new form of educational choice that empowers families to utilize state funding to customize K-12 schooling options beyond just private school tuition, which is all that's allowable under a more traditional voucher program. Now called the Gardiner…

One of the National-led Government's main educational reforms has been the development of charter schools, which they chose to call Partnership Schools/Kura Hourua. This article concentrates on the initial development of the New Zealand charter school model from December 2011 to September 2013. It looks at the coalition agreement, Cabinet papers,…