Market-based policies, especially school vouchers, are expanding rapidly and shifting students out of traditional public schools. This essay broadens, deepens, and updates prior critiques of the free market logic in five ways. First, while prior articles have pointed to some of the conditions necessary for efficient market functioning, I provide a…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "State Education Policy Impact." Contents include: (1) Texas Legislature Fails…

This document records testimony from a hearing held to examine the benefits of charter schools for students and families. Member statements were presented by: (1) Honorable Aaron Bean, Chairman, Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education; and (2) Honorable Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Early Childhood,…

In this paper, we use a unique two-stage experiment that randomized access to school vouchers across both markets and students in rural India to estimate the revealed preference value of school choice. In the first step of the research design, we develop an empirical model of school choice subject to liquidity and credit constraints that is…

The growth of homeschooling from a somewhat fringe movement during the 1970s and 1980s to a more widespread and socially accepted approach in recent decades has provided a strong foundation of flexible learning models. When Florida's school choice expansion, House Bill 1, was introduced in January 2023, one of its goals was to allow more…

Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) are government-funded accounts typically established for parents who opt not to enroll their children in public kindergarten through grade 12 (K--12) schools. ESAs allow parents to spend funds that the state would have spent for their student to attend their local public school on a broad array of educational…

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…

Milton Friedman is widely considered the intellectual father of the school choice movement. While Friedman deserves much credit, Father Virgil Blum stands out as an influential figure in the nascent school choice movement. Using archival research, this paper examines Blum's contributions to the movement. From his 1954 doctoral dissertation, which…

Between 2017 and 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court examined three cases that involved states that tried to limit the use of public money to support religious-affiliated schools. The Supreme Court found a violation of the Free Exercise Clause in all three cases. Although not the focus of the Court's opinions, these cases may have created avenues for…

A pervasive issue in the school choice literature is whether schools of choice cream-skim students by enrolling high-achieving, less challenging, or less costly students. Similarly, schools of choice may "pushout" low-achieving, more challenging, or more costly students. Using longitudinal student-level data from Indiana, we created…

Private school leaders weigh costs and benefits when deciding whether to participate in school voucher programs. Regulatory costs associated with accepting voucher funding could reduce private school leaders' willingness to participate. We test this hypothesis through the first random assignment analysis of the effects of various regulations on…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore the academic experiences and resilience of postsecondary education foster youth, who received the McKinney-Vento voucher, in terms of their experienced barriers and successful practices in academic engagement, and their academic outcomes experienced during enrollment in postsecondary…

Education savings accounts (ESAs) are designed to provide families with greater flexibility in designing educational programs that meet the needs of their children outside of the public system. Through ESAs, state education funds that are allocated for a child to attend public school are transferred directly to the child's family to use for the…

Across the country, states have expanded their voucher programs rapidly within the past few years. School choice advocates named 2023 the "year of universal choice" because of the frequency of states adopting these programs. Universal school choice programs make school vouchers available to all families, regardless of their income level…

Influencing major education policies in the US such as school vouchers and charter schools, market theory assumes that organizational autonomy, parental choice, and competition between schools improve the quality of education. However, whether those policies can influence the instructional core of schools is not well understood. Comparing private…