Educational Leaders’ Perceptions and Responses to Competition in School Choice Systems: A Comparative Case Study

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 12:40 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Perspectives on Market-Based Education (Table 28)

Abstract

In school choice systems, school leaders may engage in limited or uneven forms of competition and adopt a range of different strategies, depending on how they perceive the competitive landscape and their school’s place within it. To advance the field’s understanding of the competitive dynamics of school choice, this comparative case study combines secondary analyses of data from two school choice research projects—one in Detroit, Michigan and the other in the Bedford-Albertville (pseudonym) metropolitan area in Pennsylvania. Drawing on interviews with school and district leaders, we offer a comprehensive picture of the competitive school choice landscape in our cases, illuminating the factors that shaped leaders’ perceptions of competition and how those perceptions translated into recruitment and enrollment efforts.

Authors

• Jeremy L. Singer, Wayne State University

• Sophia Seifert, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc