Universal Private School Choice: Implementation, Organizational Responses, Student Outcomes, and Fiscal Effects

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Recent expansions of private school vouchers and education savings accounts (ESAs) toward universal eligibility represent one of the most significant shifts in U.S. education policy in decades. These policies allow for public funds to be used for educational options that families have traditionally paid for. While early research has provided insights on the outcomes of participating students or competitive effects of more restrictive voucher programs, far less is known about how new universal choice policies reshape school behavior, organizational strategy, student outcomes, and education finance systems. This panel brings together four complementary studies that examine the implementation and effects of universal choice policies to provide a comprehensive understanding of how these policies operate in practice and effect our increasingly diversified educational ecosystem. 

The first paper applies resource dependence theory to examine how school system leaders across sectors (traditional public, private, charter, microschools, and homeschools) respond to expanding ESAs in Arizona and Florida. The paper highlights how increased competition and resource uncertainty shape organizational strategies such as programmatic innovation, marketing, and structural adaptation. The second paper focuses on voucher expansion implementation in the Catholic school sector. This paper presents a comparative qualitative study of Catholic school leaders in Indiana and Ohio, showing how differences in voucher design, such as fixed vs. sliding-scale voucher amounts, shape implementation challenges, communication strategies, and resource allocation decisions. Together, these studies situate key implementation mechanisms through which policy design influences school and system behavior. 

The latter two papers of this panel focus on the academic and fiscal effects of universal choice systems. Leveraging thirteen years of comparable public and private school data in Indiana, the third paper estimates the effects of voucher use on achievement and chronic absenteeism across multiple policy phases that span means-tested to (near-)universal eligibility. This analysis provides updated evidence on how voucher effects may evolve as programs expand to broader populations. The fourth paper shifts to system-level impacts, using national finance data to estimate how universal voucher policies affect revenue and spending in public, charter, and private schools, with attention to how funding structures mediate these effects. 

Collectively, the panel advances our understanding of universal private school choice policies by integrating evidence across levels of analysis, school sectors, and states. The papers highlight how political environments and policy design features such as funding formulas, eligibility rules, and regulatory environments shape not only who participates in voucher programs, but also how schools respond, how resources are distributed, and ultimately how students are served. This work is especially timely given the rapid enactment of universal choice policies across states and their growing fiscal and political prominence. 

By bringing together diverse methodological approaches, including qualitative interviews and longitudinal quasi-experimental designs, this panel provides policy-relevant evidence for researchers and policymakers seeking to understand the consequences of universal private school choice. The findings have direct implications for the design, implementation, and accountability of voucher and ESA programs in an evolving education marketplace.

Policy Area

• Education

Chair

• Shelby Leigh Smith, University of Southern California

Discussants

• Huriya Jabbar, University of Southern California

• Joydeep Roy, New York City Independent Budget Office

Individual Presentations

• Resource Dependence in an Evolving School Marketplace: Organizational Responses to the New Universal Choice Landscape - Presenting Author: Jeimee Ivonne Estrada-Miller, University of California, Riverside

• A Two-State Comparison of Schools’ Implementation Experiences with Universal Voucher Programs - Non-Presenting Co-Author: Julie Dallavis, University of Notre Dame; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Monica J Kowalski, University of Notre Dame; Presenting Author: Joseph Waddington, University of Notre Dame

• Comparing the Impacts of Universal vs. Means-Tested Vouchers on Student Achievement and Absenteeism in Indiana - Non-Presenting Co-Author: Mark Berends, University of Notre Dame; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Joseph J Ferrare, University of Washington Bothell; Non-Presenting Co-Author: Joseph Waddington, University of Notre Dame; Presenting Author: Ron W Zimmer, University of Kentucky

• The Effects of Vouchers on Public, Charter, and Private School Revenue - Presenting Author: Douglas N Harris, Tulane University

Organizer

• Joseph Waddington, University of Notre Dame