School choice has been regarded as an important strategy to improve the educational system in the U.S. for several decades. This topic has received strong attention from scholars and an increasing body of research has investigated the effects of school choice on the public education system. However, little attention has been paid to the determinants of the level of school choice and no consensus has been reached about the effects of school choice on traditional schools. Using longitudinal datasets from Florida, in this study I explore which district and community factors may be associated with the level of school choice in the district. Also, this study examines the effects of school choice programs on student achievement in traditional public schools. Several empirical approaches are involved in addressing two research questions. First, I utilize Negative Binomial Regression (NBR) and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression to check how predictors are related to dependent variables across districts or schools. Then, as the main empirical strategy, fixed effects regression models are employed to investigate the relationship between predictors and dependent variables. Fixed effects model produces more precise estimation than the regression model by controlling for unobservable variables. Overall, regression results suggest that the educational needs of districts, such as district achievement level and the characteristics of the student body, are significantly associated with the level of school choice programs. In addition, districts' organizational and political aspects are important predictors for the level of school choice, although the degree of influence on the level of school choice depends on the types of school choice programs. This study, however, does not provide consistent evidence of a relationship between the level of school choice and student achievement in traditional schools. Although there are some cases that suggest school choice affect the performance of traditional schools, most results in my final model (a school fixed effects model) find no significant effects of school choice. These findings indicate that districts respond to educational needs of students by using school choice programs under the restrictions of organizational and political circumstances. However, in contrast to the expectation of school choice advocates, the effects of school choice programs on performance of the traditional schools are limited. This study contributes to the body of knowledge regarding the factors associated with the level of school choice within districts and the effects of school choice on traditional schools. Further study is needed on the effects of school choice on student achievement by using diverse measures of student achievement such as graduate rates and achievement gaps among racial groups. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2012. / June 13, 2012. / charter schools, open enrollement, school choice / Includes bibliographical references. / Patrice Iatarola, Professor Directing Dissertation; Betsy Becker, University Representative; Judith Irvin, Committee Member; Stacey Rutledge, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_183052 |
| Contributors | Park, Juhyoung (authoraut), Iatarola, Patrice (professor directing dissertation), Becker, Betsy (university representative), Irvin, Judith (committee member), Rutledge, Stacey (committee member), Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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