School Choice Decision-Making Among Low-Income and Racial/Ethnic Minority Parents

Background and Purpose: Education reform initiatives often point to the potential of school choice (SC) as one way to achieve educational equity. SC policies allow parents to choose schools other than their neighborhood schools, relying on the assumption that parents gather information about their school options and then use their knowledge to choose schools that are academically rigorous. In turn, it is expected that parents will prioritize academic outcomes and choose only schools that are academically rigorous. Few empirical investigations, however, examine parents’ experience with SC. An enhanced understanding of SC is important for school social workers (SSW) to engage parents in SC decision-making and, ultimately, improve academic outcomes for children. This study addresses this gap by examining parents’ SC knowledge and parents’ academic and nonacademic priorities as predictors of the quality of their school choices.

Method: Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 110 parents recruited in person at churches and community-based organizations in a large city. Measures included scales assessing parents’ knowledge related to SC and their academic and nonacademic priorities in SC decision-making. Quality of SC was measured using two variables: parent satisfaction and schoolwide academic performance scores for the school of choice obtained from the state’s Department of Education. Separate hierarchical regression analyses examined the relationships among the variables, with one analysis using parent satisfaction as the dependent variable and the other using schoolwide academic performance scores. Both analyses also assessed any potential moderating effects of academic and nonacademic priorities on the relationship between parent knowledge and quality of school choice. Household income and educational attainment were included as covariates.

Results: Analyses revealed that the model accounted for a statically significant amount of variance in parent satisfaction (F (2, 104) = 8.09, p < .01) and schoolwide academic performance score (F(7, 102) = 3.18, p < .01), explaining 25% and 12% of the variance, respectively. When controlling for household income and educational attainment, parent knowledge was the only statistically significant predictor of parent satisfaction (B = .37, p < .01), while academic priorities was the only significant predictor of schoolwide academic performance score (B = .27, p < .05). Academic and nonacademic priorities did not moderate the relationship between parent knowledge and quality of SC.

Conclusions and Implications: Parents in this sample who reported more knowledge were more satisfied with their SC, yet they were not more likely to choose schools with higher academic performance scores. Parents who had more academic priorities chose schools with higher academic performance scores, but they were not more likely to report satisfaction with their SC. Further, parents’ academic and nonacademic priorities did not moderate these relationships. As urban areas increasingly rely on SC to improve education, this study yielded important findings that begin to test the policy’s underlying assumptions. SSW practice offers an opportunity for intervention that enhances parents’ agency in SC. These findings highlight the potential for SSW practitioners to assist parents in their SC decision-making, particularly in relation to parents’ knowledge and priorities in SC.