School choice policies are often based on the idea that competition will generate better outcomes for all students. Yet there is limited empirical research about how school leaders actually perceive competition and whom they view as rivals. Drawing on concepts from economic sociology, I study principals' competitive networks and the sets of…

School choice policies, such as charter schools and vouchers, are in part designed to induce competition between schools. While several studies have examined the impact of private school competition on public schools, few studies have explored school leaders' perceptions of private school competitors. This study examines the extent to which public…

Central to the debate over school choice has been the question of how public schools respond to market-based competition. Many choice advocates suggest that competition can spur public schools to become more effective and efficient, but the evidence regarding the effect of competition from charters is comparably sparse and mixed. This article…

Market models of education reform predict that the growth of charter schools will infuse competition into the public school sector, forcing traditional public schools to improve the practices they engage in to educate students. Some scholars have criticized these models, arguing that competition from charter schools is unlikely to produce…

We study the effects of private school competition on public school students' test scores in the wake of Florida's Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship program, now known as the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which offered scholarships to eligible low-income students to attend private schools. Specifically, we examine whether students in…

Findings from this study show that educational and mobility opportunities for families and students participating in the Chilean voucher system are not homogenously distributed. Some families and students use and benefit from the system, while others will remain marginalized. The quantitative results in this study demonstrate that students of…

Proponents of school choice policies assume that such policies will create competition between schools for nearby students. This paper discusses the differences between choice and competition in education and why the existence of choice does not necessarily translate to competition. Vouchers and charter schools have been the twin pillars of school…

According to a new study of Milwaukee public schools, student achievement has benefited from voucher-based school competition. A novel method, using geocoding, was proposed for measuring the degree of competition within the city of Milwaukee and, in turn, for determining whether such competition has increased or decreased the achievement of public…

This paper examines evidence on the "systemic effects" of expanding school choice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee is home to one of the nation's largest and longest-running school choice programs. If there are systemic effects from expanding school choice we should be able to see them in Milwaukee. This paper also introduces a novel…

A Friedman Foundation report attempts to find empirical support for the contention that competition from private schools, through voucher programs, improves the effectiveness of public schools. In the first year of Ohio's new EdChoice voucher program, the report claims to have found substantial academic gains at public schools exposed to the…