You Can Often Get What You Want: Assessing the Match between Parent Preferences and Private Schools of Choice

43 Pages Posted: 27 Aug 2016 Last revised: 29 Aug 2016

See all articles by Evan Rhinesmith

Evan Rhinesmith

University of Arkansas - Department of Education Reform

Patrick Wolf

University of Arkansas - Department of Education Reform

Date Written: August 19, 2016

Abstract

Providing parents choices in education has become an increasingly popular instrument for reforming education in the United States. While existing research on parent satisfaction in private school choice programs shows that parents are satisfied with the schools they have chosen, there is not much to explain their satisfaction. Previous research using parent surveys asks parents to rate and/or grade their school of choice, while comparing their response to their thoughts on their previous public school. This paper reports new empirical evidence that looks to offer a possible explanation for parents’ satisfaction. Using data from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, we look to analyze whether or not parents get what they choose for when given the opportunity to choose a private school. Our analysis makes use of survey responses from parents that can be matched to students and then matched to principals. In total, there were 7,338 parents who received a survey. Of these, 3,226 parents completed a survey. In total, there were 1,868 students who responded to surveys. Parents were matched to MPCP students using a unique child ID, resulting in 1,856 parents who were matched to students. These were then matched to principals representing 123 schools participating in the MPCP. Our analysis of the MPCP examines the probability of a parent choosing a school that ranked at least above average on the specific characteristic they had listed as most important to their school choice. Since a school having a specific characteristic is a binary variable, we used Logit as the functional form of the regression equation in order to estimate the probability that parents get what they choose for.

Keywords: School choice, Parental preferences, Milwaukee, MPCP, School characteristics

Suggested Citation

Rhinesmith, Evan and Wolf, Patrick, You Can Often Get What You Want: Assessing the Match between Parent Preferences and Private Schools of Choice (August 19, 2016). EDRE Working Paper No. 2016-11, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2830648 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2830648

Evan Rhinesmith (Contact Author)

University of Arkansas - Department of Education Reform ( email )

201 Graduate Education Building
Fayetteville, AR 72701
United States

Patrick Wolf

University of Arkansas - Department of Education Reform ( email )

201 Graduate Education Building
Fayetteville, AR 72701
United States

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