The education system in Northern Ireland (NI) is complex with the diversity of management structures reflecting religious affiliation and academic selection. Within the system, integrated education provides a mechanism to promote reconciliation among divided communities. Integrated education has been aided by legislation--most recently, the…

This brief summarizes research that studies the Zones of Choice (ZOC) program, an ongoing initiative of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The research investigates the mechanisms through which the ZOC program may have improved student outcomes and finds that changes in schooling practices played a role. Specifically, schools in the ZOC…

Student assignment algorithms have far reaching implications for families, the education system, and for society as a whole. Motivated by operational challenges faced by the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), we use a mechanism design framework to develop, operationalize, and streamline algorithmic student matching policies in San…

In many ways, Arizona is on the forefront of school choice: in addition to a state-wide open enrollment law, it was one of the first states to adopt charter school legislation in 1994 and currently has the second-highest percentage of public school students attending charter schools in the nation. Despite the extensive research on school choice,…

One schooling sector that had been growing before the pandemic, hybrid schools, in which students attend physical classes fewer than five days per week and are homeschooled on the other days, has seen recent continued growth. One factor that has not been explored is the commuting patterns families follow to use these schools. Whether families…

A qualitative phenomenological study was used in this study to explore the reasoning behind a parent's decision to send their child to a suburban, predominantly white, private school in the city of West Palm Beach, Florida, where high-income families are highly prevalent. Ten parents of newly enrolled high school students were recruited to…

In this research article, Leslie K. Finger and David M. Houston explore how different ideas about the objectives of education can influence families' schooling preferences and choices. For their study they employed a conjoint experiment embedded in an online survey to examine participants' preferences for various school characteristics, including…

Families' abilities to participate in public school choice programs may be constrained by residential and school location. We provide some of the first evidence of the role that residential mobility and commute time to school in entry into and exit from inter-district and charter school choice. Using a unique panel of student enrollment and…

Over the past 20 years, international student mobility has experienced a three-fold increase, as planned and emerging education hubs have attracted increasing numbers of students. The appeal of alternative destinations is strengthened by their cultural, linguistic, and geographic proximity, as well as a growing number of internationally ranked…

Although previous studies have investigated the contribution of several components of the school choice paradigm to school segregation, one critical aspect has not received attention from segregation scholars: schools' priority rules, that is, the rules schools apply in case of oversubscription. We evaluate how three priority rules -- grade-based,…

College choice is one of the most significant decisions a family will make. Families with high socioeconomic status often hire independent educational consultants (IEC) to assist their family in college search activities. A review of the literature indicated a gap in the literature regarding IECs' understanding of the factors which influence their…

In school choice systems, many families face geographic constraints. Yet, there is limited evidence on the association between school-based transportation and students' school choice, especially in fragmented transportation contexts. Using unique data on Detroit kindergarten students' eligibility and access to school-based transportation, we find…

This study examines how the student transportation options available to families affect which schools are accessible to them in a choice-based setting. The study has two parts. First, we compare commute times by foot, public transit, school bus, and car. We show that providing school bus service reduces commute times and improves access for…

The purported purpose of school choice policies is to increase students' access to "good schools." There is little discussion, however, of where those good schools are located, nor of the ways in which the distribution of good schools mirrors broader patterns of uneven development in the United States. Given that schools are neighborhood…

Over the past three decades, urban sociologists have shed light on the intensifying social inequality between the wealthiest and poorest neighborhoods in global cities; yet limited research has been done to illuminate the relationships between urban polarization and school choice (i.e., where parents choose schools for their children). This study…