This week’s review is on School Choice: Separating Fact from Fiction, edited by Patrick J. Wolf.
Patrick Wolf, a leading researcher at the University of Arkansas and champion of school choice reform, offers this collection of short (10-20) papers on various aspects of the school choice movement. Given the academically-centered aspects, the book is certainly not for everyone, but provides a valuable starting point for consideration of the research around school-choice, charter schools, and private schools, especially with the explosion of state funding systems for non-traditional public schooling. Despite Wolf’s favoritism for the concept, the book presents the data in an unbiased way and presents paths for future research to improve our understanding of outcomes.
Rather than focus on each individual piece, I thought I’d highlight those aspects that were most interesting to me. Please note, each article follows standard research practice, with abstracts, research methods, data discussion, analysis, and extensive endnotes. The pieces examine school choice programs, racial integration, charter school enrollment/retention practices, societal impacts, policies, parent satisfaction, homeschooling effects, the growth of non-cognitive skills, and long-term educational attainment. In looking at these nine topics, the biggest hurdles remain the general difficulty of educational research, especially in this field: a lack of control groups, multiple factors, the relative “newness” of school choice,” et al. Regardless, Wolf highlights in the introduction that the works arise from the lack of informed discussion on the topic of school choice, not an exhaustive discussion of the field itself.
When it comes to choosing a school, the first paper highlights similarities with similar markets where interest between customers and the system differ and where knowledge may be a problem: “complicated and expensive markets such as house, doctors and hospitals, and automobiles. Information is essential for markets to work well and imperfect and asymmetric information is likely to exist in schooling markets” (9). This leads to the primary argument for school choice: “to facilitate a better school match for students’ unique needs” (10). The paper goes on to highlight a revealed preference from a 2011 study that leads to higher than stated Catholic school enrollment (55% reported preference vs 71% actual enrollment).
The second and third papers further this discussion by looking at the actual demographics of chosen schools. A typical canard of anti-choice advocates who point to segregation, selective enrollment, and rigged lotteries. This topic, in particular, would be a rich source for continued study with updated numbers amidst increased funding and programs across the nation. Elie Swanson in the second piece highlights the difficulty with measuring “integration” as a concept – is it strictly racial? socioeconomic? and its difference from neighboring schools. The majority (7 of 8) found that “vouchers increased racial integration for participating students” (36-37). The third essay notes lower rates of special needs and English language learners students and posits that part of this not just selective enrollment/retention but families choosing the more well-resourced public school systems. Data suggests that “there was no evidence of achievement based push-out at charter schools” (54, based on 2017 and 2013 studies) while a 2016 study found that “disparities in suspension rates mostly disappear when comparing charters to their neighboring [emphasis original] public schools” (55).
Corey DeAngelis’ essay marks a shift from enrollment-focused papers to effects-focused topics. He highlights a 2017 study that shows “that children [in Louisiana] in private schools catch up to their control group counterparts in achievement by the end of the third of the program” (61). His examination of the theory of why this growth happens is centered on the idea that school choice increases matching between families and institutions, drives quality through competition, increases exposure to alternative views, and disperses the balance of power away from monopoly government instruction. His discussion of the research focuses on the measurable aspects of view exposure, highlighting this increase.
The fifth essay interested me the most – by looking at data on policies (74-75):
Among studies that have examined the effects of both urban and nonurban charter schools, the research suggests that the average charter school performs about as well, but no better, than nearby traditional public schools in terms of boosting student achievement…However these students also suggest that there is great variation in the effects of charter schools…Under what conditions are charter schools most likely to be successful?
This analysis is beholden to an observational approach and highlights the (relative success) of urban schools. The successful schools also frequently have a “comprehensive behavior policy” (84), more schooling (either in terms of the length of the day or year), and focus on academic outcomes as measured by testing. Likewise, teacher support, data driven-instruction, and focused tutoring are key policies that seem to have a positive effect. Class size, teacher qualifications, affiliation, parent involvement, institutional age, and enrollment have little impact. Of course, many of these are also part of the “secret sauce” of successful non-charter schools, whether they be private or public.
The later reviews were of less relevance to my interests but I found this interesting nugget: “the literature suggests that school choice has a negative effect on non-cognitive skills but positive effects on student behavior” (152). These certainly seems counter-intuitive to me, but perhaps the difficulty of measuring and what to measure in terms of non-cognitive skills is a source of this datum point.
School Choice: Separating Fact from Fiction, edited by Patrick J. Wolf.
Good For: Those looking for charter school data for the school choice movement.
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