A review of the research on parent satisfaction in private school choice programs

Abstract

ABSTRACTI review the research literature on parent satisfaction with private school choice programs providing vouchers, scholarships, or education savings accounts. The reviewed studies make use of parent surveys to measure satisfaction, often comparing the responses of parents of scholarship lottery winners to those of parents of students who lost scholarship lotteries or comparing parent satisfaction in their current private school of choice to satisfaction with their previous public school. Results of all these studies show parents who can choose private schools are more satisfied with their child’s school. These studies also find higher levels of satisfaction when comparing choice parents to public school parents. More research is needed to explain why parents choose specific schools and whether parents choose schools that satisfy specific qualities they have deemed important when choosing a new school.