Measuring School Choice Using Indicators

Abstract

School choice is becoming an increasingly common policy in school districts, although it remains controversial and its outcomes are not well understood. This article argues that we need better definitions and measures of the practices and policies that create school choice and that this can contribute to a clearer understanding of the nature of school choice and to more effective planning and evaluation. This article proposes system (district)-level indicators of school choice that operationalize the concept of "school choice. " The types of indicators presented here could produce valuable inter district comparative information on processes and outcomes of school choice.

School Choice Acceptance: An Exploratory Explication

“…Selection of appropriate measures is far from certain (Archbald, 1996;Lieberman, 1993Lieberman, , 1994Merrifield, 2001). Numerous indicators of choice exist.…”

“…Archbald (1996) proposed the number of choice options available by school districts or individual schools as a measure. This study builds upon Archbald's research using: (a) proportion of schools that offer specific choice options (School Choice Index) and (b) a count of the number of school choice policies in a state (Degree of Choice).…”

A Comparative Analysis of High and Low Performing Schools in Agriculture in Eswatini

“…Input indicators refer to the relevant physical facilities such as personnel and financial resources devoted to education (Sheppard, 1998). Archbald (1996) described input variables as "givens", because the system has little or no control over them in the short term. Indicators of these variables are useful for understanding the demographic conditions affecting the school such as poverty, ethnic composition and employment.…”

Policy Correlates of Performance Among Georgia's Public School Systems

“…Georgia school systems are the units of analysis. While there are few empirical findings based on system level comparisons, scholars have shown increased theoretical interest in policy making at this level (Oakes 1986(Oakes , 1989Archbald 1996). Our main concern is with policy differences across systems, and the association of those differences with variations in aggregate performance.…”

“…We think that the variables in Figure 2 represent a reasonable selection for an exploratory study. While most of these variables could be classified either as input or as "process" variables, high school completion rates are customarily characterized as outputs (Office of Educational Research and Development 1988;Archbald 1996). Customary classification seems to rest more heavily upon conceptual foundations than upon empirical verification.…”