Since the Every Student Succeeds Act became law, states have taken advantage of opportunities to engage the arts more broadly in education policy -- from including the arts in STEM education to using the arts as a strategy to meet the needs of underserved youth. At the same time, many states' policy agendas address school choice, with ongoing…

In the United States, students are assigned to public schools based on where they live. School districts have set boundaries and students living in the neighborhoods within those boundaries attend the district's schools. The district's boundaries are further delineated into attendance zones, in which particular homes and neighborhoods are assigned…

In severing the link between residential address and school assignment, school choice policies have the potential to decrease school segregation and increase educational equity. Yet this promise is undermined when school choice creates greater opportunity for those who are already privileged while limiting access to students from historically…

This study explores the high academic achievement of Excelencia Early College High School (EECHS), located along the Texas-Mexico border. An open-enrollment public school, EECHS serves students who are characteristic of the lower Rio Grande Valley. These include students of low socioeconomic backgrounds, minorities, first-generation, and those…

Open-enrollment policies allow students to transfer from one public school to another of their choice. While open-enrollment policies involve students transferring to another school or district, the specifics of these policies vary significantly across states. States' open-enrollment policies may allow for voluntary or mandatory participation at…

School choice is a hotly debated issue in today's press, politics, and public discourse. In principle, the idea of families being able to choose the public school that is best for their children has widespread appeal. Interest in choice has been fueled in part by distinctive views about educational approaches and in part by the fact that…

Studies on student engagement in learning have mainly focused on undergraduate degree courses. Limited attempts have been made to examine student engagement on open access enabling courses, which is targeted to underrepresented students in higher education. Students on open access enabling courses are at high risk due to a low academic achievement…

As US public education enrolment grows increasingly diverse, school choice policies create opportunities to break the link between residential and school segregation. They also create new pathways for families to self-segregate into ever more racially isolated schools. This study explores student enrolment patterns in Metro Detroit over a ten-year…

EdChoice and Braun Research conducted its annual survey to gauge the opinions of the American public (N = 1,209) and school parents (N = 1,238) on topics like the state of K-12 education, their schooling preferences, choice reforms and the current pandemic--to name a few. Both survey samples are nationally representative of those respective…

In the context of ongoing discussions about student costs of non-credit developmental writing, this study reports on the affordances of Basic Writing as a traditional, stand-alone course at a career-focused, four-year university. Participants were students who took Basic Writing and Composition 1 between Fall 2011 and Spring 2013 (N = 2,693) in…

In this article, we focus on a statewide system of interdistrict open enrollment in Michigan, known as Schools of Choice. Our previous work indicated that students who take advantage of this program are disproportionately lower performing on state exams, come from lower-income families, and are more likely to be minority students. We estimated…

In 1981, Cambridge, Massachusetts, became the first school district in America to replace its neighborhood schools with a "controlled choice" assignment plan, which considered parental preference and racial balance. This article considers the history preceding this decision to explore how and why some Americans became enamored with…

The massification of Argentine higher education intensified in the context of open-access and tuition free public university policies. Although Argentina stands out in relation to enrollment in higher education, it faces serious problems in terms of retention and graduation. To study the factors associated with dropout in the higher education…

The goal of this brief is to examine the extent to which different school choice policies have been implemented in rural communities, identify the barriers, and provide recommendations for policymakers looking to expand access to school choice in rural communities. The school choice policies discussed in this brief include: (1) Charter schools;…

Many small rural schools are facing a crisis of declining student populations and in the era of school choice, school districts are looking at innovative ways to attract and retain students. Research is limited on the qualitative experiences of people in communities who are focused on increasing inter-district open enrollment in K-12 schools as a…