Documenting Geographic Isolation of Schools and Examining the Implications for Education Policy

2019 ◽  
pp. 089590481986444 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Chris Curran ◽  
James Kitchin
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Private School ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
School Funding ◽  
Geographic Isolation ◽  
Unique Challenge ◽  
School Contexts ◽  
Student Demographics ◽  
The Common ◽  
K 12

Geographic isolation of K-12 schools represents a unique challenge to schools with implications for school funding, staffing, resource acquisition, consolidation, transportation, and school choice among others. To date, little research has documented the extent of geographic isolation at a national scale or how it varies across school contexts. Using the Common Core of Data and the Private School Universe Survey, this study estimates the extent of geographic isolation nationally and explores how such isolation varies across contexts. Estimates are calculated and compared using as the crow flies distance, road travel distance, and travel time. Results indicate that geographic isolation of schools is relatively high within district, particularly in rural areas. Although inclusion of schools in nearby districts greatly reduces isolation, many local markets of schools remain small. Results further show that geographic isolation varies greatly across states and across student demographics. Implications for policy are discussed.

scholarly journals Determinants of School Choice: Evidence from Rural Punjab, Pakistan

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamna Ahmed ◽  
Sahar Amjad Sheikh
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Private School ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
School Quality ◽  
Public Schooling ◽  
Private Schooling ◽  
Research Initiative ◽  
Rich Information ◽  
Perceptions Of School

The objective of this study is to understand why parents in rural areas of Punjab, Pakistan, choose to send their children to private schools when free public schools are available. The study utilizes the Privatization in Education Research Initiative (PERI) school choice dataset compiled by the Lahore School of Economics in collaboration with the Punjab Bureau of Statistics. These data provide rich information on parents’ perception of their child’s school relative to alternative schools he or she could have attended. The findings suggest that parents’ perceptions play an important role in school choice. In particular, their perceptions of school quality and employment opportunities emerge as key determinants of private school choice. Additionally, expenditure on and access to private schooling relative to public schooling as well as the socioeconomic status of the household have a significant impact on parents’ probability of choosing a private school for their child.

School Segregation in the Era of Color-Blind Jurisprudence and School Choice

2021 ◽  
pp. 107808742110495
Author(s):  
Charles T. Clotfelter ◽  
Steven W. Hemelt ◽  
Helen F. Ladd ◽  
Mavzuna R. Turaeva
Keyword(s):  
School Districts ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Private School ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Interracial Contact ◽  
Color Blind ◽  
To Come ◽  
Using Data ◽  
K 12

The decades-long resistance to federally imposed school desegregation entered a new phase at the turn of the new century. At that time, federal courts stopped pushing racial balance as a remedy for past segregation and adopted in its place a color-blind approach to evaluating school district assignment plans. Using data that span 1998 to 2016 from North Carolina, one of the first states to come under this color-blind dictum, we examine the ways in which households and policymakers took actions that had the effect of reducing the amount of interracial contact in K-12 schools within counties. We divide these reductions in interracial contact into portions due to the private school and charter school sectors, the existence of multiple school districts, and racial disparities between schools within districts and sectors. For most counties, the last of these proves to be the biggest, though in some counties private schools, charter schools, or multiple districts played a deciding role. In addition, we decompose segregation in the state's 13 metropolitan areas, finding that more than half can be attributed to racial disparities inside school districts. We also measure segregation by economic status, finding that it, like racial segregation, increased in the largest urban counties, but elsewhere changed little over the period.

scholarly journals The Rural/Nonrural Divide? K–12 District Spending and Implications of Equity-Based School Funding

AERA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 233285842098254
Author(s):  
Tasminda K. Dhaliwal ◽  
Paul Bruno
Keyword(s):  
School Finance ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
School Funding ◽  
Finance Reform ◽  
Funding Formula ◽  
Underserved Students ◽  
Rural Districts ◽  
School Year ◽  
Local Control Funding Formula ◽  
K 12

In the 2013–2014 school year, the state of California implemented a new equity-minded funding system, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). LCFF increased minimum per-pupil funding for educationally underserved students and provided greater autonomy in allocating resources. We use the implementation of LCFF to enrich our understanding of rural school finance and explore the implications of equity-based school finance reform across urbanicity (i.e., between rural, town, suburban, and urban districts) and between rural areas of different remoteness. Drawing on 15 years of financial data from California school districts, we find variation in the funding levels of rural districts but few differences in the ways resources are allocated and only modest evidence of constrained spending in rural areas. Our results suggest that spending progressivity (i.e., spending advantage of higher-poverty districts) has increased since LCFF, although progressivity is lowest in rural districts by the end of the data panel.

Tennessee Education Savings Account: Tipping the Scales From Equity to Choice

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 98-110
Author(s):  
Erin Curtin
Keyword(s):  
School District ◽  
School Choice ◽  
State Level ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
Comprehensive Education ◽  
Policy Window ◽  
Federal Poverty Line ◽  
Scholarship Program ◽  
Shelby County ◽  
K 12

This article provides an analysis of Tennessee’s newly signed Education Savings Account policy, a school choice initiative. The policy provides vouchers, in the form of a debit card, to students in grades K-12 who are at or below 200% of the federal poverty line and are zoned to attend a Nashville, Shelby County, or Achievement School District school. Using the Policy Window Framework the author uncovers that the policy was created in a federal and state-level political convergence, which attempted to place equity at the forefront of the issue. However, using Levin's Comprehensive Education Privatization Framework, we can see that neoliberal ideals of choice and efficiency conquer equity in the finalized policy. The author predicts the outcomes of this new policy using this framework in tandem with 3 case studies: Louisiana Scholarship Program, DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, and Tennessee’s Individualized Education Accounts.

Lessons learned from a search for common ground

2021 ◽  
Vol 102 (5) ◽  
pp. 29-32
Author(s):  
Rick Hess ◽  
Pedro Noguera
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Social And Emotional Learning ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Teachers College ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Education Leaders ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Common Understanding

In 2020, Rick Hess and Pedro Noguera engaged in a long-running correspondence that tackled many of the biggest questions in education — including topics like school choice, equity and diversity, testing, privatization, the achievement gap, social and emotional learning, and civics. They sought to unpack their disagreements, better understand one another’s perspectives, and seek places of agreement or points of common understanding. Their correspondence appears in their book, A Search for Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K-12 Education (Teachers College Press, 2021). In this article, they reflect on the exercise, what they learned from it, and what lessons it might offer to educators, education leaders, researchers, and policy makers.

The puzzle of parental partiality

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin M. Macleod
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Private Schools ◽  
Private School ◽  
Parental Partiality ◽  
Fair Chance

In this article, I offer a response to Adam Swift’s book, How Not to be A Hypocrite: School Choice for the Morally Perplexed Parent, by developing some reflections on the nature, value and limits of parental partiality. I address two main issues. First, I consider the issue of how we should interpret the character and value of parental partiality. I argue that treating parental partiality as a kind of disposition helps to illuminate its distinctive value and also explains why we tend to judge some illegitimate expressions of partiality more harshly than others. Second, I examine one of the justifications Swift views as valid for sending children to private school. I criticize Swift’s contention that parents can be justified in sending children to private schools in order to secure for them a ‘fair chance in life’.

Immigrant Students in the Trump Era: What We Know and Do Not Know

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 716-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi Nguyen ◽  
Maraki Kebede
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
Educational Experiences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
Deferred Action ◽  
Political Divide

The 2016 U.S. presidential election marked a time of deep political divide for the nation and resulted in an administrative transition that represented a drastic shift in values and opinions on several matters, including immigration. This article explores the implications of this political transition for immigrants’ K-16 educational experiences during President Trump’s administration. We revisit literature on school choice and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)—two policy areas where the most significant changes are expected to occur—as it pertains to immigrant students in the United States. We identify areas where there is limited scholarship, such as the unique educational experiences of various minority immigrant subgroups, the interplay between race and immigration status, and immigrant students in rural areas. Recommendations are made for policy and research.

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