A substantial body of research shows that when families can use state-sanctioned funds to pay for private school and other academic experiences, everyone wins. Students graduate high school and attain college degrees at higher rates, schools improve academic achievement and become more diverse, parents are satisfied, and taxpayers save money. A…

There are numerous widely recognized advantages to pursuing post-secondary education. Yet colleges offer students different resources and educational experiences, which may introduce inequality in the returns to college enrollment. This dissertation uses nationally representative data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS:2002) and the 1997…

School choice is a tool used to fight inequality and is important to consider how students are assigned to schools. The essays in this dissertation study mechanisms designed to improve and understand students' attendance at schools. Chapter 1 examines the inequality caused by the COVID-19 pandemic with respect to schools switching to a hybrid…

Many U.S. cities with school choice programs have adopted unified enrollment systems to manage their application and placement processes centrally. Typically, these systems use placement algorithms to assign students to schools. These algorithms make placements based on families' rank-ordered requests, seat availability in schools, and various…

Many cities with school choice programs employ algorithms to make school placements. These algorithms use student priorities to determine which applicants get seats in oversubscribed schools. This study explores whether the New Orleans placement algorithm tends to favor students of certain races or socioeconomic classes. Specifically, we examine…

This poll was conducted between October 12-16, 2023, among a sample of 2,251 adults. The interviews were conducted online, and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of adults based on gender, educational attainment, age, race, and region. This report highlights: (1) views on K-12 education; (2) schooling and experiences in K-12…

The Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES) Program, signed into law on May 9, 2019 (1002.394, F.S.), was established to provide children of Florida's families with financial assistance to attend an eligible private school of their choosing with funding equal to 100% of a given school district's average cost per student. Eligibility is limited to…

In this study, the preference of public school teachers for sending their children to private schools has been regarded as a dilemma, and the reasons behind the choices made by public school teachers and the consequences of these preferences have been uncovered through semi-structured interviews with public school teachers. The research was…

School choice draws upon market principles for restructuring education as schools compete for student enrollment by appealing to parents. When parents hold the power to choose where--among several options--to enroll their child for learning, they will select the school that best meets their child's academic and social-emotional needs (Cooper,…

This article problematizes the lottery as a taken-for-granted concept, which is normatively understood as a neutral process rewarding its participant based on luck. The article adopts a policy problematization frame that interrogates the limits of normative concepts. To problematize the lottery system, this article engages with the two movies on…

This poll was conducted between January 5-8, 2024 among a sample of 2,251 Adults. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of Adults based on gender, educational attainment, age, race, and region. This report highlights: (1) views on K-12 education; (2) schooling and experiences; (3) K-12…

Public education, at least as it has been known for the past several generations in the US, is under threat. Conservative state legislatures from Arizona to Florida have enacted sweeping voucher legislation, channeling taxpayer dollars to private schools. At the same time, a vicious culture war has engulfed the public education system in…

School choice policies can, by design or in implementation, give schools and districts discretion over enrollment. In this study, I examine the effect of local discretion over inter-district open enrollment on non-resident enrollment. I use longitudinal data on open enrollment patterns and policies in the metropolitan Detroit area. I find that…

This poll was conducted between June 5-7, 2024 among a sample of 2,251 Adults. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of Adults based on gender, educational attainment, age, race, and region. Results based on the full survey have a measure of precision of plus or minus 2.44 percentage points.…

This paper measures parents' beliefs about school and peer quality, how information about each affects school choices, and how social interactions mediate these effects. Parents underestimate school quality and overestimate peer quality. Cross-randomized school and peer quality information combined with a spillover design shows that when parents…