School choice, policy feedback effects, and policy outcomes: understanding the relationship between government policy design and parent decisions to “stay” or “defect” from public education

Abstract

ABSTRACT Across OECD countries, education choice is proliferating as parents seek and governments permit choice both inside and outside public education systems. The movement of students out of the common public school, however, varies significantly across jurisdictions and sociodemographic characteristics such as race and class. This variation in individual decision making and macro policy outcomes directs us to theorise about the relationship between parental preferences, government responses, and policy outcomes. We map the interplay between the demand for choice, institutional responses, and policy feedback effects that lead to four major policy outcomes: partially attenuated governance, hyper choice, partial accommodation within the public system, and non-accommodation that leads parents to withdraw from the public education system. We apply this framework to understanding variation in patterns of school choice in Canadian provinces and conclude by outlining some ways in which our framework can be used to understand school choice outcomes cross-nationally.