{"title":"School Choice (And Diversity) in the UK since 1944: Continuity, Change, Divergence and School Selectivity","authors":"A. West","doi":"10.1080/15582159.2023.2169814","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2023.2169814","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper focuses on school choice and diversity in the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) in historical context. Drawing on primary and secondary documentary sources it assesses continuity, change and divergence, before addressing existing diversity and school choice, and academic outcomes. The 1944 Education Act and associated legislation established, in each country, a system of state-funded church and state schools, comprising, academically selective (grammar) and non-selective secondary schools, with test scores determining whether the child was allocated to a selective or non-selective school. The paper argues that there has been broad continuity in Northern Ireland, whilst from 1965 England, Wales and Scotland diverged when school systems were reorganized – to a greater or lesser extent – along comprehensive lines. From the 1980s, parental “choice” (and diversity) policies were implemented in all countries, albeit differently. It is argued that existing school diversity across the UK is associated with distinctive histories and political ideas, and with varying levels and types of school selectivity and social segregation. Furthermore, the institutional rules regarding who is prioritized for a school place in the event of oversubscription – particularly in the case of selective and religious schools – can constrain parental choice as they enable schools to “select in” and “select out” certain students. Whilst improving educational standards was a key goal for the Conservative government when it introduced market-oriented reforms in England, evidence points to improved academic outcomes being related to changes in assessment policy.","PeriodicalId":34913,"journal":{"name":"Journal of School Choice","volume":"17 1","pages":"15 - 34"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47143641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Useful are Ofsted Inspection judgements for Informing Secondary School Choice?","authors":"C. Bokhove, John Jerrim, Sam Sims","doi":"10.1080/15582159.2023.2169813","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2023.2169813","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT School inspections are a key component of the accountability system in many education systems, including England. The judgments and reports produced through these inspections are widely used by parents when they are choosing a school for their children. But should they be? This paper presents new evidence on this issue. We illustrate how parents selecting secondary schools using Ofsted judgments will often be basing their decision on dated information. Indeed, half the time, this will be based on a period in which the school had a different headteacher. We find there are almost no differences in future academic, behavioral, school leadership and parental satisfaction outcomes between schools rated as good, requiring improvement and inadequate in the inspection data available to parents at the point of school selection. That is, parents who choose a “good” secondary school for their child will not leave with appreciably better outcomes than a parent who selects an “inadequate” school. The one exception to this is an Outstanding judgment, which does predict future academic outcomes – though only if the inspection was conducted within the last five years. We thus advise parents that – besides choices involving Outstanding schools – Ofsted judgments are of limited use to them in selecting a school.","PeriodicalId":34913,"journal":{"name":"Journal of School Choice","volume":"17 1","pages":"35 - 61"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46966981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"School Choice in Europe","authors":"T. Agasisti, Rodrigo Queiroz e Melo, R. Maranto","doi":"10.1080/15582159.2023.2169808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2023.2169808","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In the introduction to the special issue on school choice in Europe, we explain the purpose of this special issue and summariize the individual articles, stressing the lessons learned from European experience.","PeriodicalId":34913,"journal":{"name":"Journal of School Choice","volume":"17 1","pages":"1 - 9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41712226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Learning from School Choice in Europe","authors":"C. Glenn","doi":"10.1080/15582159.2023.2169807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2023.2169807","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Most Western democracies have long provided public funding to non-government schools, but the reasons for these arrangements differ with significant practical consequences.","PeriodicalId":34913,"journal":{"name":"Journal of School Choice","volume":"17 1","pages":"10 - 14"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49354495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Termination of Publicly Funded Private School Contracts: Supply and Demand Side Effects","authors":"João Firmino, André Guilherme, A. Leme, L. Nunes","doi":"10.1080/15582159.2023.2169810","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2023.2169810","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We evaluate the demand and supply side effects of a policy which cuts funding to a significant portion of publicly funded private classes in Portugal, Contratos de Associação (AC), in which students do not pay tuition fees and are under the same admission criteria as in Public Schools – i.e., these private schools cannot select students based on their socioeconomic status or prior achievement. This policy established that from 2016/17, Private school classes would no longer receive Contratos de Associação funding if the government deemed that there were enough nearby Public Schools with capacity to absorb the new student cohorts. Compared to the pre-reform student cohort, we find that affected students changed the demand patterns for different types of schools: both the number of Public school classes and regular Full-Fee Private School classes increased, but the rise in the former was larger in absolute terms. Nevertheless, this pattern of movements was heterogenous across different sub-groups of the student population. While non-low-income students switched both to Public and Private school classes, we verify practically a one-to-one movement of the low-income student cohort from AC schools to Public schools only. On the supply-side, we find that the decrease in AC schools was not fully compensated by the increase of schools that are now under different Private School systems and that some of these schools later shut down.","PeriodicalId":34913,"journal":{"name":"Journal of School Choice","volume":"17 1","pages":"82 - 102"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49652396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Parental Involvement and School Choice in Hungarian Primary Schools","authors":"Gabriella Pusztai, P. Róbert, Hajnalka Fényes","doi":"10.1080/15582159.2023.2169812","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2023.2169812","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this study, we examine the features of school choice by comparing parental involvement between denominational and public schools. In Hungary, denominational schools reemerged after the fall of communism in 1989, and their share increased further after 2010. The survey data, we employ, refer to primary school children’s parents and were focused on parental involvement at home and at school. Our hypothesis is based on the work of Epstein and Coleman and suggests a prominent role for denominational schools in parental involvement. However, our results show that Hungarian denominational schools differ in terms of parental involvement and school choice from what theory or practice in other western countries suggests. School choice of Hungarian parents is primarily driven by the intention to ensure a more culturally and economically homogeneous and safer environment for their children. Parental involvement tends to be stronger at home and at school due to higher parental religiosity, regardless of the school sector. The novelty of our findings is, that opposite to the literature, mostly not the school type but parents’ religiosity increase both the home based and the school based parental involvement.","PeriodicalId":34913,"journal":{"name":"Journal of School Choice","volume":"17 1","pages":"118 - 135"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43112380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inclusive or Divisive Choices? Education Policy Preferences in the Bilingual Education System of Estonia","authors":"Triin Lauri, Kaire Põder","doi":"10.1080/15582159.2023.2169811","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2023.2169811","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article investigates educational preferences in the bilingual education system that reinforce the salience of both socio-economic and socio-cultural issues. We ask, first, how many distinct groups of educational preferences exist and whether these differ by ethnic nationality. Second, we investigate the extent to which economic self-interest vs values-driven logic of preference formations explain educational preferences and whether these determinants differ by ethnic nationality. We rely on individual-level survey data and run Latent Class Analysis and multivariate regression. We find three distinctive classes of educational preferences and that relatively high popular demand for private provision and parental choice co-exist alongside respect for comprehensive schooling in Estonia. These classes differ slightly by ethnic nationality – Russians show relatively more support for inclusive choice, while Estonians show greater support for public comprehensive schooling, with only weak socioeconomic and political party influences. The only clear explanation for different latent-class belonging is values, i.e., belief in meritocracy and the fairness perception of educational inequality; somewhat surprisingly, the marginal effects of these do not differ by ethnic nationality.","PeriodicalId":34913,"journal":{"name":"Journal of School Choice","volume":"17 1","pages":"136 - 160"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49032811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Who Chooses Single Sex Schooling and Why? Evidence from Ireland","authors":"J. G. Clavel, D. Flannery","doi":"10.1080/15582159.2023.2169815","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2023.2169815","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A common decision parents face is the choice of school for their children. In Ireland, somewhat uniquely in an international context, this choice includes a large number of state-funded single-sex schools, to the point that this can be considered a realistic option for many parents. Focusing on secondary-level education and using the PISA 2018 dataset, we examine whether different parental attitudes help explain the selection of single-sex versus coeducational schools in Ireland. Focusing on those households that have a degree of choice in secondary school selection, we find that parents who place a greater emphasis on factors such as religious ethos and academic achievement rather than subject choice or the climate of the school tend to have children in single-sex schools. The importance of a school’s academic achievement seems to be particularly relevant for those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.","PeriodicalId":34913,"journal":{"name":"Journal of School Choice","volume":"17 1","pages":"103 - 117"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49283949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Estimating the Impact on Educational Demand of Divesting in a Private School Voucher Policy: A Study of an Italian Region","authors":"M. Cannistrà, T. Agasisti, F. Olivanti","doi":"10.1080/15582159.2023.2169809","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2023.2169809","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Voucher policies represent a market mechanism to support school choice, with the expected effect of stimulating competition among schools and, in turn, positively benefiting the educational outcomes. As the only Italian region adopting this policy to free private/public school choice, Lombardy is the subject of this study. In particular, we aim at understanding whether the voucher policy still affects private school enrollments, considering its de-financing in 2016. Findings show that this reduction did not impact private enrollments. Reasons could be probably found in the well-rooted motivations behind private school choice and in the low amount of the voucher, which does not cover the full private school enrollment.","PeriodicalId":34913,"journal":{"name":"Journal of School Choice","volume":"17 1","pages":"62 - 81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44416231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Turnover Contagion: Trust and the Compounding Impact of Turnover on Teachers","authors":"Matthew S. McCluskey","doi":"10.1080/15582159.2022.2151923","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2022.2151923","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Teacher turnover is high in US public schools, and it is growing. Such turnover has academic and financial costs, but little is known about the impact on teachers themselves. How do teachers experience turnover? Using interviews of departed teachers and focus groups of new and veteran teachers, this qualitative multi-site case study examines how teachers at a so-called “no-excuses” Charter Management Organization (CMO) experience and respond to high turnover. Findings reveal that teachers experience considerable strain as a result of high levels of turnover due to increased demand on their expertise and diminished trust. This turnover, in turn, begets turnover.","PeriodicalId":34913,"journal":{"name":"Journal of School Choice","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45589034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}