Exploring the Prospects of Collaboration Between Parents and Nonprofit Organizations for School Choice

• In Event: Tensions and Complexities: How Policy Actors Navigate, Reproduce, and/or Disrupt Inequities in U.S. School Choice Contexts

Abstract

School decisions may hold long lasting consequences for student success. While researchers recognize that parents may benefit from various information interventions as they navigate school selection processes, they have limited knowledge about how families secure information and assistance for school decisions from formal partnerships with nonprofit navigator organizations. To deepen our understanding of interpretive assistance with school choices and parents’ use of tailored school information, this study offers an in-depth exploration of a choice navigator organization and parents’ perceptions of this form of collaboration for school choice. This analysis generates new insights on a model of decision support where cultural brokers assist families with school selection and questions whether certain forms of assistance can help parents become savvier educational consumers.

Author

• Jason Saltmarsh, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author