Parent trigger laws have gained momentum nationally under the premise that they will increase local authority by amplifying parental voice in the decision to turn around "failing" schools. Using Hirschman's exit, voice, and loyalty framework we create two conceptual models of voice and evaluate the promise of voice in California,…

This article investigates the effect of school autonomy on multiple measures of student achievement, combining the individual data of the students participating in the International Civics and Citizenship Survey with their results in the national high stakes standardized tests at the end of eighth grade administered by the Italian National…

The Open Government Partnership is an international initiative, committing governments to its principles of transparency. This article examines how it can advance the topic of freedom of educational choice, as it emphasizes the importance of parents' involvement in the decision-making process at the school level. The article is based on the…

In this scholarly commentary, the author examines the major reasons U.S. charter schools have closed since 1992. The commentary provides examples of charter school failures in high-frequency areas, such as financial and organizational mismanagement, and academic underperformance; it further identifies two subcategories of academic risk:…

We seek out the good institutional features of the European choice policies that can enhance both equity and efficiency at the system level. For causality analysis we construct the typology of 28 European educational systems by using fuzzy-set analysis. We combine five independent variables to indicate institutional features of school choice…

This longitudinal case study examines 10 years' worth of annual monitoring reports for two rural Native American Charter Schools. Using data from multiple sources including interviews, site visits, and document analyses, the authors used provisional coding and constant comparison analysis to categorize the accolades and recommendations embedded in…

This study examines the conflict facing state education officials in reporting the adequate yearly progress results required by No Child Left Behind and how those challenges obfuscated the transmission of school choice information to parents. To comply with school accountability mandates, state education officials transformed test scores into…

The authors conducted a statewide study to determine which factors influenced parents' decision making in electing to homeschool their children rather than send them to public school education in South Dakota. Analysis of data, using frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations revealed that the most prevalent reasons for homeschooling…

Using data from the National Center for Educational Statistics, this article examines the relationship between strength of state accountability policy (i.e., external accountability) and internal accountability, defined as a school-level system in which collective behaviors and conditions exist that direct the attention and effort of the internal…

Charter school research has examined the relationship between charter school mission and issues of school accountability. However, there is a lack of research focusing on how charter school leaders frame and solve problems regarding multiple accountability demands. Given this gap, I investigate the question: How do charter school leaders…

It is possible that private schools in Australia may soon become the major providers of education at the senior secondary level. In this paper I describe the context for public and private schooling and report trends that point to the likelihood of such an outcome. The complex arrangements for public and private funding make Australia a rare…

In 2002, Qatar began establishing publicly funded, privately operated "independent schools" in parallel with the existing, centralized Ministry of Education system. The reform that drove the establishment of the independent schools included accountability provisions such as (a) measuring school and student performance and (b) distributing school…

Few people realize the movement's breadth and the forms in which school choice expansion is manifest. Out of slightly more than 57 million K-12 schoolchildren, almost 29.4 million--nearly 52%--are enrolled in a K-12 school choice option. This article provides an overview of the scope of school choice today and summarizes the political, policy, and…

Every child gets assigned to a public or private school chosen by some adult. The question is which adult should hold that authority by law and exercise it in practice. Our Federal Constitution recognizes the authority of custodial parents; but our systems of tax-based schools effectively dethrone working-class parents and the poor; most of whose…

Pressing questions about the merits of market accountability in K-12 education have spawned a large scholarly literature. Unfortunately, much of that literature is of limited relevance, and much of it is misleading. The studies most widely cited in the United States used intense scrutiny of a few small-scale, restriction-laden U.S. school choice…