Choosing Schools Increases Parent Satisfaction

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Choosing Schools Increases Parent Satisfaction

• Mark Schneider
• Stony Brook University

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There are many forms of choice

• Neighborhood selection
• Inter-municipal choice
• Vouchers/subvenciones
• Charter schools
• Parents are more satisfied with their childs
  school under all of them

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Why is satisfaction with schools of choice so
strong?

• Parents can choose a school that they like the
  best (Consumer sovereignty)
• Milton Friedman

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School efficiency

• Choice leads to better products as the monopoly
  power of schools is eroded.
• The beneficial effects of competition

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Increased Client Orientation

• Staff are more interested in satisfying parents
• Less bureaucracy, smaller schools

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My research is about parent satisfaction with
charter schools
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What are charter schools?

• They are publicly-funded schools that have more
  autonomy than traditional public schools.
• In return for greater autonomy they are supposed
  to have increased accountabilitysince their
  license is for a fixed length of time and they
  have no right of renewal.

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Charter schools are the most rapidly growing form
of choice in the US

• Close to 600,000 students enrolled
• Almost 3000 charter schools in about 40 states
  with an increase of about 15 per year.
• The number of parents, children and school staff
  involved with charter schools reached nearly
  2,000,000

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My research venue Washington DC

• There are over 40 charter schools and more are
  authorized every year
• compared to around 150 traditional DC public
  schools
• About 12 of students in the District attend them

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Are Washington D.C. parents satisfied with the
education their children are getting?

• Telephone survey of DC parents in charter schools
  and DC municipal schools
• To gauge satisfaction we asked parents to give a
  grade (A, B, C, D, F) to teachers, principal
  (director), school infrastructure and overall
  school.
• We also asked them about their level of
  satisfaction with class size, school size,
  discipline and attention to values

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Charter School Parents Grade Teachers Higher
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Charter School Parents Grade Principals
(directores) Higher
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Charter School Parents Grade Their School
Infrastructure Higher
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Charter School Parents Grade Their Overall School
Higher
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Charter school parents are also more satisfied
with other aspects of their childs school
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Conclusion Satisfaction with Schools of Choice

• Parents are more satisfied with schools they
  choose across a whole range of dimensions
• My research shows that these differences are
  real and not the result of
• Rose colored glasses
• Self-selection
• And these differences persist over time