Local Demand for a School Choice Policy: Evidence from the Washington Charter School Referenda

The expansion of charter schools—publicly funded, yet in direct competition with traditional public schools—has emerged as a favored response to poor performance in the education sector. While a large and growing literature has sought to estimate the impact of these schools on student achievement, c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Education finance and policy 2011-07, Vol.6 (3), p.323-353
Main Authors: Corcoran, Sean P., Stoddard, Christiana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic achievement
Censuses
Charter Schools
Educational Policy
Educational Resources
Elections
Political Attitudes
Referendums
School Choice
School districts
School Effectiveness
School enrollment
Standard deviation
Standardized Tests
Student Characteristics
Union Members
Voting
Voting precincts
Washington
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Summary:The expansion of charter schools—publicly funded, yet in direct competition with traditional public schools—has emerged as a favored response to poor performance in the education sector. While a large and growing literature has sought to estimate the impact of these schools on student achievement, comparatively little is known about demand for the policy itself. Using election returns from three consecutive referenda on charter schools in Washington State, we weigh the relative importance of school quality, community and school demographics, and partisanship in explaining voter support for greater school choice. We find that low school quality—as measured by standardized tests—is a consistent and modestly strong predictor of support for charters. However, variation in performance between school districts is more predictive of charter support than variation within them. At the local precinct level, school resources, union membership, student heterogeneity, and the Republican vote share are often stronger predictors of charter support than standardized test results.
ISSN:1557-3060
1557-3079
DOI:10.1162/EDFP_a_00038