Parents around the globe are increasingly understood to contribute to educational inequality through their choice of schools. This important critique risks minimising the way choice systems may favour certain parents over others. A case study of Singapore and its primary school enrolment process helps illustrate how parent's interactions with…

I calculate the cost-effectiveness of private schools participating in school voucher programs, independent charter schools, and district-authorized charter schools, compared to traditional public schools in Wisconsin for the 2017-18 school year. I calculate cost-effectiveness by dividing the Accountability Report Card score for each school by the…

What drives parents to decide to send their children to a particular type or stream of schooling over another? Existing literature suggests that parents take several factors into account while making their children's school choice: the academic reputation of the school, the distance between the child's home and school, a stronger focus on…

This annual publication of "The ABCs of School Choice" is a comprehensive, data-rich guide to every private school choice program in America. This edition of "The ABCs of School Choice" defines each of the four types of school choice: education savings accounts, vouchers, tax-credit scholarships and individual tax credits and…

In education policy, conservatives have often been more identifiable by what they are against than what they are for. Ronald Reagan ran in 1980 promising to eliminate the Department of Education, and since then, numerous conservative politicians have stated they wish to do the same. At times, conservatives have been known to support school choice…

Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) are private savings accounts funded by a deposit from the state government and managed by a parent. The deposit amount varies from state to state and is typically based on the state's per-pupil amount. To use an ESA, parents withdraw their child from the public school system and use ESA funds to purchase specified…

The responsibility to make a free appropriate public education available to all students with disabilities applies to ALL public schools under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Charter schools are public schools; therefore, they bear the same responsibility. Who is actually responsible for ensuring that special education…

We examine how the racial wealth gap interacts with financial aid in American higher education to generate a disparate impact on college access and outcomes. Retirement savings and home equity are excluded from the formula used to estimate the amount a family can afford to pay. All else equal, omitting those assets mechanically increases the…

In a prior study, MDRC researchers found that Small Schools of Choice, a SIG-approved high school reform initiative, markedly and consistently increased high school graduation rates in New York City when it was implemented in 100+ high schools between 2002 and 2008. A four-year follow-up study found that the initiative increased students'…

This is the second and final brief on the Cowen Institute's 2022 annual poll of parents' and guardians' perceptions of K-12 public education in New Orleans. The Cowen Institute has conducted these polls since 2007 with the intent of providing insight into how parents, guardians, and the general public view New Orleans' highly decentralized K-12…

Charter schools and inter-district public school choice are a growing part of the public school system. Theoretically, competition for students might lead to competition for effective and diverse teaching faculties. This study assesses how competition from school choice relates to the distribution of teacher characteristics across school contexts,…

There are many different schooling options, but not all educational choice programs are created equal. Public charter schools and public-to-public transfers, for example, have provided options within the traditional system, but those programs leave many schooling types off-limits for families. EdChoice's goal as the nation's oldest school choice…

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically disrupted the functioning of U.S. public schools, potentially changing the relative appeal of alternatives such as homeschooling and private schools. We study changes in families' choices of school sector using longitudinal student-level administrative data from Michigan and nationally representative data from the…

This is the policy brief for the discussion paper, "Still Worth the Trip? School Busing Effects in Boston and New York." While choice systems offer students in segregated neighborhoods access to schools that may be more integrated and of higher quality, does busing lead to improved academic performance as measured by higher test scores…

This article focuses on the interplay between institutional arrangements, family strategies, and market devices in the transition to higher education (HE) in France with a view to documenting both persistent features of the French 'conservative' educational regime and recent changes, in particular those related to neo-liberal influences. Using a…