Getting to School: School Choice, Journeys to School, and the Complexities of Family Decision Making

Background and Purpose:

School choice policies, often driven by concerns about school underperformance and unequal access to quality schools, have become increasingly prevalent. Though there is considerable literature on school choice, only a narrow subset of this research focuses on the experiences of low-income and working-class families and it has been critiqued for viewing school choice decisions of low-income families from a deficit perspective. To address this gap, we aim to understand how families of children pre-K through grade 12 living in a public housing community choose the schools they send their children to and how these choices shape family life and relate to school satisfaction.

Methods:

We conducted semi-structured interviews in a racially and ethnically diverse sample of 22 parents and 22 youth (ages 12-24) from 27 unique households. Families resided in a large, urban public housing development within a city with a robust city-wide school choice system. We elicited information about school decisions, school satisfaction, and family life. Using Reflexive Thematic Analysis, we coded the interview transcripts and engaged in iterative analysis including memo-writing and theme generation.

Results:

Families’ school choice decisions fell into three categories: constrained non-choosers, school switchers, and choosers. Constrained non-choosers (n=7) reported limited agency in the school choice process, most often reporting that they were assigned a school or constrained to choosing a school based on proximity or schedule demands. School switchers (n=8) began as non-choosers, but later transferred their children to a different school typically due to dissatisfaction with the school’s ability to meet their child’s needs. Choosers (n=11) most often made school choice decisions based on the reputations of specific types of schools (e.g., exam schools) or on a holistic assessment of school features. We found that families across categories faced similar challenges in the wake of school choice, namely unsafe or lengthy commutes which served as obstacles to engaging fully in school life and vastly complicated the lives of parents. Although most of the schools attended by children in our sample were designated as low-performing, almost all families expressed satisfaction with their schools, primarily due to supportive school staff.

Conclusion and Implications:

Proponents of school choice argue that it puts power in families’ hands to select schools that are high quality, particularly in areas with underperforming schools. Most families in our sample were engaged in the school choice process, but many reported limited agency or the need to make multiple school transfers before arriving at a school that they were satisfied with, though many experienced notable stressors accessing schools outside of their neighborhood. This points to important policy implications and social work interventions for low-income families. Social workers and school systems may use findings like ours, that speak to the lived experience of school choice policies and their aftermath, to design more rigorous approaches to assess inequities in school choice systems. Such work should capitalize on the strengths of families like those in our sample, who are engaged and active but constrained by structural inequities.