Parental Choice in Education

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Abstract
In this article, the authors describe four prominent forms of parental choice that have been proposed as broad policy tools to improve education, identify assumptions underlying these initiatives, and review the findings of research that bear on these assumptions. Although the evidence is generally incomplete and inconclusive, it sheds more light on the type of parents who are most likely to exercise choice: They tend to be better educated and already involved in their children's education. The general lack of evidence leads us to two observations: (a) the current debate over choice may center less on the question of its ability to improve education and more on the question of whose interests are served by education, and (b)the failure of researchers to examine nonchoosing parents may have eliminated an important perspective from the discussion on choice as an educational policy tool.

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