Contexts Matter: Voucher Use and Students’ Current Schools, Private School Markets, and Public School Markets

• In Event: Roundtable Session 124
  In Roundtable Session: How Parents Choose: Sociological and Economic Perspectives

Abstract

This paper examines how three types of contexts are associated with eligible elementary school students' participation in a means-tested voucher program: characteristics of students' own schools, the private school markets that they face, and extent to which they have access to public choice options like charters and open enrollment. Students in schools that receive lower grades from the Department of Education, and students attending schools with higher rates of violent incidents, non-violent incidents and out-of-school suspensions, are more likely to participate in the voucher program. Participants have more convenient and diverse private options than do non-participants, although their proximate private school options have lower parent ratings. Finally, participants have more restricted public choice options on average than do non-participants.

Authors

• Cassandra M.D. Hart, University of California - Davis

• David Figlio, University of Florida