Educational choice programs--defined broadly as programs that provide parents financial aid to opt their children out of the traditional public school system--have been a topic of significant public discussion and debate in recent months. Despite the increasing news coverage, however, polls show that most Americans are unfamiliar with educational…

Transportation remains a vexing concern in cities that offer students school choice. Time and again, research has shown that families typically want high-performing schools or schools with unique academic programs. But those schools tend to be concentrated in a city's affluent neighborhoods, often long distances from low-income households and…

The global middle class (GMC) is a theoretical construct that seeks to globalise a set of attributes identified in studies of school choice in the global north, and to a lesser extent in developing nations in Asia. As theorised by Ball a mobile middle class with cosmopolitan sensibilities drives international education options in global cities.…

The 2020 Budget builds off the foundation of the President's previous budgets and provides an avenue toward spending restraint. The Budget meets the President's directive on spending reductions by agency, proposing over $2.7 trillion in spending reductions--more proposed spending reductions than any previous administration in history--and closing…

Arizona is arguably the nation's most innovative state for educational choice. It has a thriving charter school sector that serves 16 percent of the state's students in 556 charter schools. The state has also launched several groundbreaking programs for families to attend private schools. In 1997, Arizona passed the nation's first tax-credit…

This article examines the link between the governance of Hong Kong's international school and Direct Subsidy Scheme school categories and changes in the broader Hong Kong society through a neoliberal framework. As Hong Kong's economy has grown since the 1997 handover to the People's Republic of China, an increasing number of people have come to…

John Merrifield (in this issue) raises three important observations regarding this review of the literature on the competition effects of school vouchers. The first is an acknowledgment of the limited nature of current school choice markets in the United States. Merrifield's second observation is that the potential responses to competition…

In this article I will argue that New Zealand's Special Education 2000 (SE2000) policy demonstrates the way in which seemingly just and fair policies can lead to occurrences of injustice and unfairness towards some of those whom they impact. What this debate turns on is the justice of a policy which takes as its starting point the unquestioned…

Wisconsin--and, in particular, urban Milwaukee--has been at the forefront of a half-century of public education experiments, from desegregation and "school choice" to vouchers and charter schools. "Lessons from the Heartland: A Turbulent Half-Century of Public Education in an Iconic American City" by Barbara J. Miner, former…

The schooling option that is the most widespread nation-wide is interdistrict open enrollment. In California this is called District of Choice (DOC). DOC programs have been recognized as a tool for school improvement. The program is intended to broaden the choices available and thus promote equity of opportunity by allowing students who lack the…

Over the past 20 years, market-based choice initiatives have become a popular approach to education reform. Since 2002, the New York City Department of Education has opened over 250 high schools, creating a marketplace so widespread that many students no longer have a zoned or neighborhood school. This article uses two New York City--based case…

Under new school-choice policies, schools feel increasing pressure to market their schools to parents and students. I examine how school leaders in New Orleans used different marketing strategies based on their positions in the market hierarchy and the ways in which they used formal and informal processes to recruit students. This study relied on…

The assumption that rational choice dynamics will lead to diversity of school supply is at the heart of K-12 school choice arrangements. Yet as the field of school choice becomes more established, there will be the "inexorable push toward homogenization." If vouchers, tuition tax credit scholarships, and education savings accounts become…

Pennsylvania is a state with significant proportions of students who attend rural schools, as well as students who attend charter schools. This study examines enrollment patterns of students in brick and mortar and cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania and how these enrollment patterns differ across geographic locale. We analyze student-level…

Statistics in Brief publications present descriptive data in tabular formats to provide useful information to a broad audience, including members of the general public. They address simple and topical issues and questions. This Statistics in Brief profiles the demographic and enrollment characteristics of undergraduates who are immigrants or…