Critical Geography in Contemporary Policy Analysis: A Spatial Examination of Private School Choice

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 3. Charter and Private Schools

Abstract

Just ahead of the 2017 presidential inauguration, the Hoover Institute held a forum entitled, “A New Federal Push on Private School Choice? Three Options to Consider”. The policy option favored by forum moderator, Michael Petrilli, was the tax-credit scholarship program. On the front-end, the tax-credit scholarship operates as a private school voucher—eligible students received a state-funded scholarship which they can apply toward tuition at a private school. The key difference is that tax-credit scholarship programs are run through state revenue code; the programs are funded by donations from private individuals and corporations who are reimbursed by the state in the form of dollar-for-dollar tax credits. Advocates argue that tax-credit scholarship programs promote educational opportunity for individuals and for local education markets (LEMs). Providing low-income students with access to private schools is assumed to benefit their individual educational trajectories, while the introduction of competition from the private sector is assumed to spur improvement in local education markets (LEMs). Evaluations of the tax-credit scholarship program in Florida – one of the nation’s largest – have shown no evidence of educational benefits for individuals or LEMs; the key success of the Florida program has been a reduction in per-pupil state education spending. The continued expansion of tax-credit scholarship programs calls for research on the impact of these programs on both individuals and LEMs. Anticipating the passage of a tax-credit scholarship in Texas, this paper used geospatial information systems software to understand how the location of private schools in the state’s largest city, Houston, may mitigate the policy’s potential to increase educational equity. Findings suggest that (1) private schools are spatially clustered in areas that are less accessible to Black and Latinx students and, (2) that their spatial locations make them unlikely to create market competition for Houston’s lowest-performing public schools.

Author

• Jennifer Carol LaFleur, Brandeis University