Private school leaders consider the potential benefits of private school choice program participation against costs associated with program regulations. Rational Choice Theory suggests leaders in states with conditions related to greater likelihood of program passage may be less willing to accept such regulations. To test this theory, we merge…

Public K-12 education is a one-size-fits-all system that cannot meet the diverse needs of students. When parents choose a school, they look at several criteria unique to their situation and make trade-offs between their preferences based on their needs. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors influencing parents to enroll their…

According to sociological rational choice theory, students' class-specific educational decisions at key transition points significantly contribute to educational and social inequalities. Yet, while theory missed to clearly accentuate all relevant actors' influences on students' decisions, research generally failed to adequately empirically account…

Gill, Brandi. Student Achievement Comparison between Traditional Schools and Schools of Choice: A Quantitative Study, (under the direction of Theodore Kaniuka, Ed.D) This study provides a detailed review of school choice literature nationally and within the state of North Carolina. The literature revealed limited studies focused on school choice…

School choice positions parents as consumers who select schools that maximize their preferences. This account has been shaped by rational choice theory. In this essay, Terri Wilson contrasts a rational choice framework of "preferences" with John Dewey's understanding of "interest." To illustrate this contrast, she draws on an…

This study was conducted in a middle-class area where school districts are largely average. The purpose of this study was to better understand how families choose among the options available to their child for entering kindergarten. These options include the neighborhood public school, open enrollment into another public school, homeschooling, or…

This study explores self-regulation in the learning experiences of school choice students who have attended a traditional public school and a charter public school. Research shows self-regulation is a form of non-cognitive executive functioning characterized by many observable traits children employ in their learning environments. Self-regulation…

In the early 1980's an education policy in Chile was formulated that encouraged the private sector to participate more strongly in the delivery of the educational service, with the purpose to achieve to have more students attending the education system and decentralize the education responsibility from the State. On the other hand, in the 1990's…

As more state legislatures join the debate on school-choice and parent-trigger legislation, their discussions draw attention to an evolving landscape outside school walls where parental action shapes educational opportunity. Parents wield their political, social, economic, and cultural capital to secure the best educational outcomes for their…

A major focus of charter school research has been the potential impact of increased school choice on student sorting by race/ethnicity and socio-economic status. Researchers have argued that charter schools may increase segregation by allowing families to separate into more homogeneous school communities. Yet surprisingly, little attention has…

This longitudinal study of eight London families used rational choice theory to explore the extent to which parents behaved rationally while seeking a secondary school for their children, according to rights given them by England's Education Reform Act (1988). Families were recruited at two London primary schools serving predominantly low…

Rational choice theory suggests that parents are utility maximizers who make decisions from clear value preferences, that they are able to demand effective action from local schools and teachers, and that they can be relied upon to pursue the best interests of their children. This paper presents a different perspective and argues that parents…

People inspired by rational-choice theory are advocating choice policies. Their recommendations are based on implicit assumptions about how school leaders would respond to a choice system. This survey research study investigated the demographic characteristics of open and closed districts during Ohio's first year of full interdistrict open…

By the year 2000, the management of education in England had lost much of its capacity to ensure the commitment of headteachers and teachers. As market forces engendered competition among schools, the bureaucratic monitoring of schools by agencies of government increased on the grounds that objective and comparable data about schools should be…

Despite homeschooling experiencing steady growth in recent decades, research is lacking to explain or theorize the complex interconnected network of factors and experiences behind parents choosing homeschooling in lieu of public or private school. According to the last twenty years of government surveys, the top reasons for homeschooling remain…