School Choice: Theory and Evidence

(AERA Handbook of Education Policy Research)

As the school choice landscape becomes more complex, families today have a number of options for their children’s schooling besides their neighborhood public school. These may include charter schools, magnet schools, vouchers to use at private schools, homeschooling, virtual schools, and inter-/intradistrict choice options. Given the rapid expansion of school choice programs and the corresponding research base evaluating such policies, the purpose of this chapter is to synthesize and analyze the developments in the vast body of school choice literature over the past 15 years. While we provide an overview of popular types of school choice programs and a brief history of school choice, this chapter is primarily dedicated to reviewing the recent literature on school choice within three prevailing theoretical frameworks that have been used to rationalize the development and expansion of school choice policies.

Read more: Golann, J., Lauren Covelli, Bailey Brown, Kara Mitchell. “School Choice: Theory and Evidence” In: Cohen-Vogel, L, Scott, J., Youngs, P. (Eds.), AERA Handbook of Education Policy Research, vol 2. American Educational Research Association (AERA). (Forthcoming 2025).