School choice and school improvement

Choice and School Improvement brings together a collection of exemplary, policy-relevant papers that examine how communities, districts, and states use choice as a strategy for improving schools and student learning. The book includes sophisticated and insightful research on private schools and vouchers; charter schools and traditional public schools; and intradistrict transfer programs, adding depth and perspective to the ongoing debates about school choice options. The authors provide rigorous research and empirical data to answer central policy questions. What is the impact of school choice on student outcomes? In systems that provide school choice, do parents choose to move their children from low-achieving schools to higher-achieving schools? Does school choice result in increased competition among schools? What is the relationship between school choice and racial or ethnic segregation in the schools? The chapters in this volume collectively exemplify the directions in which research on school choice is developing and push the field toward a more systematic and nuanced understanding of the impact of school choice.