Different Choices: A Public School Community’s Responses to School Choice Reforms

In the United States, state and federal reforms increasingly encourage the expansion of school choice policies. Debates about school choice contrast various concepts of freedom and equality with concerns about equity, justice, achievement, democratic accountability, profiting management organizations, and racial and class segregation. Arizona’s “market”-based school choice programs include over 600 charter schools, and the state’s open enrollment practices, public and private school tax credit allowances, and Empowerment Scholarships, (closely related to vouchers), flourish. This qualitative analysis explores one district-run public school and its surrounding community, and I discuss socio-political and cultural tensions related to school choice reforms that exist within the larger community. This community experienced school changes, including demographic shifts, lowered test scores, failed overrides, and the opening of high-profile charter school organizations near the school

Stories of Social Justice Educators and Raising Children in the Face of Injustice

This article examines life stories of the authors, who are parents and social justice scholars and educators from different races and backgrounds. The authors consider the emotional process of personally and collectively coping with and navigating parenting and sharing critical truths with their children in the current social, political, and cultural environment and in light of recent assaults on communities of color. They employ life history methodology to explicitly continue a critical conversation that was started by Matias and Montoya (2015) about Critical Race Parenting, and they encourage other scholars, particularly those who are parents, to think about, and articulate, their different emotions and experiences as they engage in critical race conversations about racial injustice and racist ideology, and as they more generally navigate schooling and life with their own children

Interdistrict and Charter School Mobility in Arizona: Understanding the Dynamics of Public School Choice

We investigate the mobility patterns of elementary students enrolled in Arizona’s traditional public school districts and charter schools. We address interdistrict and charter school mobility simultaneously. Most student movement is interdistrict or between school districts. In Arizona, interdistrict mobility has played a greater role in creating and sustaining the “educational market” than charter schools. There is also a substantial amount of student movement from charter schools to school districts. Regression analyses suggested that the relationship between demographic and achievement variables and the different types of student mobility differed across the two sectors. We also document regional differences in mobility patterns, which indicate that education markets vary considerably across and even within local contexts

NEPC Review: From Surviving to Thriving: K-12 Choice and Opportunity for Rural Texas Students and Teachers (The Heritage Foundation, August 2023)

A Heritage Foundation report claims increased competition has improved academic achievement in Arizona&rsquo;s rural public schools and that similar policies will be good for rural Texas. However, this report overstates the similarities between Arizona and Texas, ignores relevant research literature, and presents simplistic and inaccurate analyses to support its claims. By addressing a narrow set of possible benefits of school choice, it also overlooks issues related to fiscal impacts for district schools, segregation, and exclusionary practices for students who require specialized services in schools. The report is an exercise in advocacy for expanding school choice policies, and its usefulness as a guide for policy and practice is minimal.</p