This article focuses on the question of what strategies general education graduates can use to improve their chances of entering an attractive vocational education and training (VET) programme in Germany. We look, in particular, at grades in the school-leaving certificate and the additional acquisition of a higher qualification at a vocational…

Despite evidence that informational interventions can influence K-12 school choices, we know little about the mechanisms through which they work and the factors that produce heterogeneity in student responses. Through a school-level randomized controlled trial conducted in 473 New York City middle schools serving 115,000 eighth graders, we…

School districts in the US and around the world are increasingly moving away from traditional neighborhood school assignment, in which pupils attend closest schools to their homes. Instead, they allow families to choose from schools within district boundaries. This creates a market with parental demand over publicly-supplied school seats. More…

Growing global debates surrounding parental school choice underscore the relevance of school place allocation. While there is much research on school choice, the enactment of such allocation policy is rarely analysed. Responding to this research gap, this article investigates how local politicians in Berlin put public primary school place…

School choice lotteries are an important tool for allocating access to high-quality and oversubscribed public schools. While prior evidence suggests that winning a school lottery decreases adult criminality, there is little evidence for how school choice lotteries impact non-lottery students who are left behind at their neighborhood school. We…

This article examines a popularized term, the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), and its underlying paradigm of neoliberalism. It elucidates neoliberalism's maddening effects on the education sector, especially public education. To analyze these effects, I draw from and adapt Michel Foucault's analytical approach to madness. My analysis…

As neighborhoods across New York City gentrify, Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) has become a big draw for gentrifier families. Our research contributes to growing literature on DLBE gentrification by examining how a racially diverse group of parents in two communities perceived DLBE as a school choice option. We found that schools with…

A growing body of evidence suggests that decision-makers fail to account for correlation in signals that they receive. We study the relevance of this mistake in students' interactions with school-choice matching mechanisms. In a lab experiment presenting simple and incentivized school-choice scenarios, we find that subjects tend to follow optimal…

This article uses interest convergence and market-based theories to examine a recently-adopted controlled choice school admissions model intended to desegregate a diverse, urban school district. Drawing on longitudinal, qualitative interviews with advantaged parents who articulated support for controlled choice, we find that these parents'…

School choice is a controversial issue in the public discussion of education. In Chile, the new School Admission System (SAE) was recently implemented to gradually reverse the country's high educational segregation. However, this system is facing strong opposition. Voucher and free choice promoters have opposed SAE because they claim it violates…

Unified enrollment (UE) systems were designed to improve efficiency, equity, and transparency in school choice processes, but research has focused on efficiency gains. This study examines whether moving from decentralized enrollment processes to UE mitigates or exacerbates racial segregation that often occurs in choice systems. Specifically, we…

Unified enrollment (UE) systems were designed to improve efficiency, equity, and transparency in school choice processes, but research has focused on efficiency gains. This study examines whether moving from decentralized enrollment processes to UE mitigates or exacerbates racial segregation that often occurs in choice systems. Specifically, we…

Demand for charter schools is declining. In sixteen of the forty-one states that have published 2021-2022 enrollment numbers, charter school enrollment has dropped, in some cases, by substantial amounts. In an additional six states, charter enrollment has stalled with increases of fewer than 200 students in charter schools across the state. Using…

This paper presents empirical evidence on kindergarten admission preparation services in Hong Kong. Parents increasingly turn to tutoring companies for a range of services, such as social skills training, portfolio editing, mock interviews, and parental consultation. We used qualitative methods to capture the views of parents, teachers, tutors,…

In the context of the increased interest in social justice within education policy debates, this article addresses the new justice-oriented school admission system implemented in Chile. Considering the critical role of parents in education policy, we explore families' negotiations about the new school admission system, focusing on the moral…