The direction of high school choice policy has been one of the notable commitments every time the candidates of the superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education makes since the policy was repeatedly repealed and decided to be maintained. During the implementation of the policy, conflicts among policy related groups, such as teachers and parents, affected the decisions of the superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to alternately repeal and maintain the policy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perspective gap, roles and influence among two different types of policy actors: teachers, and parents. Through this approach, the study examines the goals and outcomes of the policy, and addresses the success and failure of the policy through the different perceptions of practitioners, and consumers. In order to achieve these goals, this study used a qualitative research method involving thirty-nine teachers and parents. The findings revealed that teachers and parents viewed that there are chronic policy making problems in Korea, which influence the frequent changes made to the high school choice policy. The absence of communication between a policy maker, policy practitioners, and policy consumers, a product of the top down decision making structure in Korea, has led to inefficiency and inflexibility the policy’s implementation and practice. Teachers and parents suggested that they should be able to contribute to policy consistency and successful implementation through early involvement in policy design and development. Understanding each role and exploring the perceptions of policy relevant actors in high school choice policy in Seoul provides a as well as providing for the further related policies. / text

Public school choice education policy attempts to create an education marketplace. Although school choice research has focused on the parent role in the school choice process, little is known about parents served by low-performing schools. Following market theory, students attending low-performing schools should be the primary students attempting to use school choice policy to access high performing schools rather than moving to a better school. However, students remain in these low-performing schools. This study took place in Miami-Dade County, which offers a wide variety of school choice options through charter schools, magnet schools, and open-choice schools. This dissertation utilized a mixed-methods design to examine the decision-making process and school choice options utilized by the parents of students served by low-performing elementary schools in Miami-Dade County. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with the parents of students served by low-performing schools. Binary logistic regression models were fitted to the data to compare the demographic characteristics, academic achievement and distance from alternative schooling options between transfers and non-transfers. Multinomial logistic regression models were fitted to the data to evaluate how demographic characteristics, distance to transfer school, and transfer school grade influenced the type of school a transfer student chose. A geographic analysis was conducted to determine how many miles students lived from alternative schooling options and the miles transfer students lived away from their transfer school. The findings of the interview data illustrated that parents’ perceived needs are not being adequately addressed by state policy and county programs. The statistical analysis found that students from higher socioeconomic social groups were not more likely to transfer than students from lower socioeconomic social groups. Additionally, students who did transfer were not likely to end up at a high achieving school. The findings of the binary logistic regression demonstrated that transfer students were significantly more likely to live near alternative school options.