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

Abstract

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.

School Choice: Supporters and Opponents

“…This is a different result than Hsieh and Urquiola (2006), who find that higher educated parents were the ones who took greatest advantage of Chile's voucher program. It also contradicts Stoddard and Corcoran (2007) and Corcoran and Stoddard (2011), who find higher education levels positively related to charter school support. But it is consistent with Brunner and Sonstelie (2003), who generally find higher education levels negatively associated with support for California's school voucher initiative.…”

“…Sandy (1992) finds Michigan voters less likely to support a voucher initiative the higher their incomes; similarly, Stoddard and Corcoran (2007) find higher-income school districts less likely to support charter schools. Corcoran and Stoddard (2011) find income positively related to charter school support at the school district level but negatively related at the precinct level. However, given the other controls, we find no independent role for income in Ohioans' attitudes toward school choice.…”

“…We summarize the differences in Table 1. Stoddard and Corcoran (2007) and Corcoran and Stoddard (2011) consider charter school support, and the rest of the studies we found consider school vouchers. We consider government-supported school choice of any form.…”

“…Kenny (2005) examines a variety of U.S. voucher votes by Congress and state legislatures. Stoddard and Corcoran (2007) study charter school authorization by state legislatures and charter school adoption by school districts, and Corcoran and Stoddard (2011) examine referenda returns for proposed charter school laws in Washington State. California and Washington are important states, and Chile's voucher program has a 20-year history to examine, but Ohio has yet to be studied.…”

“…Tastes for education may be correlated with incomes, racial and ethnic identity, and the age of a respondent, so we include these in our regression (Corcoran and Stoddard 2011). Brunner and Imazeki (2008) also suggest that residential sorting means support for school choice may vary systematically with race and socio-economic status.…”