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An ongoing struggle for affordable housing in Southern California has led many predominately White, middle, and upper middle- class families to seek home ownership in divested urban communities. This phenomenon, known as gentrification, can benefit a community by increasing property values, but often comes at a cost to longstanding, Black and Brown residents of the neighborhood. Prior research has identified areas of harm including residential displacement, declining enrollment, and segregation of neighborhood schools. This qualitative case study addressed two questions: the impact of gentrification on the Black and Brown students attending the neighborhood school; and the strategies needed to balance competing interests between gentrifiers and longstanding families. The study's findings made it abundantly clear that inequitable district and site- based policies combined with White families' self- serving interests adversely affect the minority student experience. Operating as a counterweight to the harm, interview and observation data suggested that mindful school leadership and uniting parent interests played an integral role in establishing equitable practices, policies, and access. Moreover, the data showed that the probability of leader reflectiveness and mindfulness was intensified when school leadership and active parents were themselves people of color. The implications of the study may help shape district and school policies in communities experiencing gentrification.

They show up shouting at school board meetings with endless complaints. The press interviews them as though they are "regular moms" looking out for their children, but they are not. They are a well-funded façade for the Koch, Walton, and DeVos families to disrupt and destroy public education. In our new report, author and academician Maurice Cunningham pulls back the veil on the players, their tactics, and their funders. This must-read report identifies the who, how, and why behind "Merchants of Deception: Parent Props and Their Funders."

In March 2022 a random sample of one third of Stride K12 families (37,856) were emailed a survey asking parents a series of questions about their families' experiences in their children's current Stride K12-powered online schools and their experiences in their children's former schools. 1,949 parents completed the survey, and of that total, 1,613 had Stride K12 students who had attended another school prior to attending their current online schools. These families reside in one of 28 states that have Stride K12-powered schools that were included in the survey. The purpose of the survey, and this report, are to learn more about what parents value regarding the education of their children, why they chose to enroll their children in a Stride K12-powered online school, their degree of satisfaction with various aspects of their current online schools, and their satisfaction levels with their children's Stride K-12 powered schools as compared with their former schools, when applicable. The survey results indicate that parents have overwhelmingly positive views of how their children are faring at their Stride K12-powered online schools and that their children who did migrate from other schools faced a variety of challenges in their former schools.

Opponents of education choice often make two arguments about its effect on rural areas: (1) education choice will not help in rural areas because there are few or no alternatives to the district school system; and (2) education choice will destroy the district school system because so many students will leave for alternative options. These two claims are mutually exclusive. They cannot both be true, but they can both be--and indeed are--false. The dearth of education options in rural areas has been greatly exaggerated. About seven in 10 rural families live within 10 miles of a private elementary school. Children in rural areas can attend charter schools in states with policies that have fostered the creation of charters in rural areas. In Arizona, more than eight in 10 students live in the same zip code as at least one charter school. Rural areas are seeing the rise of microschools, a modern reimagining of the one-room schoolhouse. Additionally, high-quality virtual schools are available to anyone with a decent Internet connection--which is becoming increasingly available in rural America. Families in rural areas have access to more education options than ever before. The most recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress for Arizona--the state with the greatest access to education choice--do not support the claim that education choice has been harmful to the rural district schools. Indeed, the best available evidence indicates that education choice is the rising tide that lifts all boats. Policymakers who want to increase education options for rural families should enact education choice policies, such as K-12 education savings accounts, and broaden charter school laws to make it easier to open them in rural areas.

For 16 years, Sallie Mae has surveyed college students and parents of undergraduate students about their attitudes toward higher education and how they're paying for it. This year's report explores education funding sources--from family income and savings to scholarships, grants, and borrowed funds--and evaluates trends in payment strategies over time. This year's report provides learnings about families' awareness of the financial aid process including researching and applying for scholarships, completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®), and understanding financial aid offers. The report also considers the steps undergraduate families took to plan for paying for higher education. Finally, for the first time, this report explores how students attending public Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) approach higher education financing. The research was conducted between March 31, 2023, and May 8, 2023. [For the 2022 report, see ED624387.]

Nokomis Regional High School, which draws nearly 600 students from eight different towns in rural Maine, has spent 10 years transforming its instructional model to immerse students in meaningful learning experiences that relate to their interests and passions. Project-based learning, interdisciplinary courses, and career exploration units are designed to help students explore various options and feel secure about their postsecondary choices. As students near graduation in this rural community, some plan to enroll in college, while others envision entering the trades or starting a job. Staff at Nokomis want students to achieve success on their own terms, which means challenging the predominantly college-oriented attitude that persists in high school practice and policy. But many teachers and administrators are still grappling with how to ensure that students choosing different pathways--some involving college, some not (or not yet)--will have an equal shot at long-term success and stability relative to their peers. Some staff think the school should more assertively push students toward college and career options beyond the local rural community. This case wrestles with how high schools can expand students' postsecondary horizons while remaining responsive to their values and interests--especially if those values differ significantly from those of the adults who support them. [For the corresponding Case Studies in High School Redesign, see ED626304 and ED626305.]

A substantial body of research shows that when families can use state-sanctioned funds to pay for private school and other academic experiences, everyone wins. Students graduate high school and attain college degrees at higher rates, schools improve academic achievement and become more diverse, parents are satisfied, and taxpayers save money. A thorough literature review by the national organization EdChoice examines 175 rigorous studies of outcomes and impacts. A total of 151 studies show at least some positive effects, 12 find any kind of negative effect, and only 18 (about 10% of the total) find no visible impact one way or the other.

Nebraska does not currently have any private educational choice programs, but recent legislative pushes have brought options such as education savings accounts (ESAs) into the spotlight. ESAs allow parents to withdraw their children from public district or charter schools and receive a deposit of public funds into government-authorized savings accounts with restricted, but multiple, uses. The characteristics of Nebraska's private school sector can inform policy debates surrounding the potential creation of educational choice programs, such as ESAs. From March 31 to May 23 2022, EdChoice administered a survey of Nebraska private school leaders. This brief provides a descriptive analysis of the results of that survey, including tuition and fees, the number of open seats, regulatory concerns, and interest in educational choice programs.

The Indiana Choice Scholarship Program (ICSP), which began in fall 2011, is a state taxpayer-funded financial aid program that helps low and lower-middle income Hoosiers to send their children to the private K-12 school of their choice. This voucher program has been extremely popular among families, as the number of students receiving scholarships has increased from 3,911 students in academic year (AY) 2012 to 36,707 by 2020. This report addresses two questions regarding the fiscal effects of the ICSP up through and including academic year (AY) 2020: (1) The fiscal effects of the ICSP on the state of Indiana budget; and (2) The fiscal effects of the ICSP on local school corporation budgets (in Indiana public school districts are termed "school corporations"). The estimates in this report suggest that the ICSP has provided modest fiscal benefits to taxpayers to date--however, the fiscal savings per scholarship recipient are quite large. Therefore, as more students access the ISCP the savings to Indiana taxpayers will increase significantly. The major findings include: (1) The ICSP saved state taxpayers a total of $42.5 million in 2019-20. These savings translate to savings of $1,158 per scholarship student--a significant sum on a per student basis; and (2) The ICSP yielded a total of $60.6 million in savings to local public school corporations in 2017-18, which was the most recent year with complete data available. These savings to local school corporations were $1,709 per student. These findings are not surprising given that the average scholarship awards are below both total expenditures per student and state per pupil funding as well.

Browsing social media during back-to-school time, one frequently encounters pleas from teachers to help purchase classroom supplies through #clearthelist campaigns or to support their class' DonorsChoose projects. At a time of historically high levels of education spending, why do teachers require additional assistance to meet basic classroom needs? How is it that a fifth-grade teacher with 20 students--representing about $13,500 each in per-pupil funding--has so little control over how the more than a quarter million dollars those students represent enters the classroom? Education funding policies should put students' and teachers' needs first. An increasing number of students now have access to education savings accounts (ESAs), an increasingly popular policy reform that puts education funds directly in families' hands to use at the school or education provider of their choice. In this report, the author argues that teachers deserve similar support and flexibility through teacher spending accounts (TSAs).

The goal of "The 123s" is to present the increasingly large body of private school choice research in a clear and easy-to-read format and cite the relevant studies so that anyone who is interested in the individual results can easily find them and read in more detail. This report is divided into 11 sections. The first section summarizes the number of studies and how many come to which conclusion. The following sections present the eight outcomes covered in this publication, including school safety and climate--a new subject of study. They are followed by a list of reviews that other researchers conducted about the eight outcomes covered. The last section discusses the strengths and limitations of research on school choice. Finally, tables in the Appendix present the various programs, organized by type. [For the 2022 report, see ED625418.]

Demands for school choice have led to a substantial increase in the educational options available to families in the United States (Stanford, 2023). Throughout the country, many areas have experienced post-pandemic expansions of school choice through micro-schools, virtual schools, and other non-traditional school models (Hamlin et al., 2023). These developments raise questions about how school leaders can support school integration as families are presented with expanding school options. These emerging forms of school choice could help to strengthen voluntary integration by allowing families to choose schools outside of segregated neighborhoods, but new forms of choice could also amplify segregation if families of similar racial and socioeconomic backgrounds congregate in the same schools. Previous research paints a complicated picture offering evidence that school choice can unleash both segregating and desegregating forces (McCallum et al., 2019; Monarrez et al., 2022). This brief describes new approaches to school choice and consider how they might influence school integration. Transformations brought about by emerging models of school choice could shape the future of school integration.

Charter schools and inter-district public school choice are a growing part of the public school system. Theoretically, competition for students might lead to competition for effective and diverse teaching faculties. This study assesses how competition from school choice relates to the distribution of teacher characteristics across school contexts, exploiting within-school temporal variation in exposure to competition from school choice -- both charter schooling and inter-district school choice. I also test whether the relationship between school choice and teacher characteristics differs between charter schools and traditional public schools, or in areas with less restrictive collective bargaining agreements. Using student- and teacher-level data from 2012-13 to 2018-19, I find that growth in choice-based competition was associated with changes in the teacher workforce that were primarily positive (e.g., an increase in teacher experience and the proportion of teachers with at least a master's degree) and primarily occurring in charter schools, with very little indication of larger systemic effects in the TPS sector.

School options have increased in Ohio and across the nation in recent decades. One prominent option is publicly funded scholarships (or "vouchers") that families can use to send their children to participating private schools. Today, over 75,000 Ohio students participate in one of the state's five voucher programs, the largest of which are known as EdChoice. Despite their growing popularity, critics have argued that expanding voucher programs harms traditional school districts. But are they right? Authored by Ohio State University professor Dr. Stéphane Lavertu, this report explores the impacts of Ohio's EdChoice program on school district enrollments, finances, and educational outcomes. The study includes detailed analyses of the state's "performance-based" EdChoice program that, as of 2021-22 provides vouchers to approximately 35,000 students as well as its "income-based" EdChoice program which serves approximately 20,000 low-income students.

This is the second and final brief on the Cowen Institute's 2022 annual poll of parents' and guardians' perceptions of K-12 public education in New Orleans. The Cowen Institute has conducted these polls since 2007 with the intent of providing insight into how parents, guardians, and the general public view New Orleans' highly decentralized K-12 public education system. As they noted in their first poll brief for this year (released in November 2022), the questions in these polls were drafted by the Cowen Institute in consultation with the contracted polling firm, LJR Custom Strategies. The poll includes questions asked each year to assess how opinions change over time, as well as new questions on the most urgent topics of the moment. The Cowen Institute began releasing the poll findings in a series of briefs rather than one comprehensive report starting in 2021 in an effort to make the results more digestible for the public. The first 2022 poll brief (ED626430) covered general perceptions about New Orleans K-12 public education; this brief explores specific education topics in greater depth. To capture the experiences and attitudes of a wide range of parents, the Cowen Institute polled 1,000 public and private school parents and guardians in Orleans Parish, as well as a small number who homeschool their children.

New York State's system of public elementary and secondary schools is in steep decline, but it is salvageable. The roots of its problems pre-date the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, but the system's response to that challenge accelerated discontent with the schools and harmed students. The damage of those years will not be undone if the state blindly continues to throw money at schools--unless there is a fundamental re-thinking of the purpose and governance of public education. New York consistently leads the nation in K-12 school spending, yet by 50-state standards, student outcomes are mired in the middle. If higher spending automatically led to higher quality, New York would be a model for the nation. Unfortunately, this model has demonstrably failed, and it is time for state leaders to fundamentally rethink their approach to education. This brief discusses: (1) the impacts of a change in the mayoral control of the New York City schools; (2) charter school outcomes; (3) the misguided college-for-all push; (4) and five areas in which the governor can lead a change in approach to education.

As Washington prepares to welcome a new Congress in January 2023, incoming policymakers who want to improve education for every student and give parents more control over where and how their children are educated have many policy options at their disposal. New Members of Congress who want to protect taxpayers and rein in college costs also have the tools to do so. It is well past time for Congress to allow more choices among existing preschool and K-12 programs in areas under its jurisdiction, and to curb government spending and higher education handouts.

School choice advocates argue that choice policies increase access to desirable schools by breaking the link between residence and school placement. However, a growing body of research suggests that the distance from home to school actually influences school choice decisions. In this study, we examine the relationship between residential decisions, commute time to school, and exit from inter-district and charter school choice in Michigan, and draw the following conclusions: (1) A higher percentage of charter and inter-district choice students change residences than students attending schools in their resident district; (2) Residentially mobile students are more likely to exit school choice programs than students who do not change residences. The majority of exits from school choice programs are associated with residential moves. (3) Additional commute time past a student's nearest school is associated with an increased likelihood of exiting school choice; and (4) Almost half of students who exit inter-district choice move into the district that they had been attending through a choice program. Our analyses highlight the interconnectedness of school choice and residential mobility. We also add to the growing body of literature challenging the idea that school choice programs completely decouple residence and schooling options and can alone increase access to high quality schools. [For the corresponding technical paper, "The Farther You Go, the Closer You Get: Understanding the Roles of Residential Mobility and Distance in Participation in Public School Choice," see ED624269.]

Due to the recent wave of momentum behind universal vouchers and education savings accounts, charter schools have become an afterthought for some conservative school choice advocates. There is a progressive and a conservative vision for charter schooling. The progressive approach to charter school authorization fails to achieve its stated goals and arbitrarily limits the promise of charter schooling. This report aims to critique the assumptions and outcomes of the progressive approach and make the case for a more conservative charter school system.