Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Mendel, Denisa Kay

Titel

A Comparison of Choice and Traditional Elementary Schools Within a Texas Independent School District

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Through the years, education policy has changed and shifted to include the issue of choice in politics and policy. Charter schools have increased in Texas and tax credit and voucher systems have been implemented in many parts of the United States. Due to this increased presence of choice, public schools responded with the implementation and development of a public-school choice system. The public-school choice systems allow parents the opportunity to transfer to a school within the district other than their assigned home campus. Arguments for choice systems state that parents can match their children to schools that will better serve their child and their individualized needs. Opponents of choice systems state that at-risk populations are excluded from choosing or they are not using the choice opportunities. To examine if all populations are utilizing choice within the public-school setting, the researcher examined data from the Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR). A series of Mann-Whitney U tests were run on the sample groups of White, African American, Hispanic, special education (SPED), economically disadvantaged (ED), and gifted and talented (GT) students to compare enrollment percentages between choice and traditional public schools. A series of independent sample t-tests and a Mann-Whitney U test were also performed to compare the performance percentages choice and traditional elementary students in grades 3, 4, and 5 on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) in the content areas of reading and math. The study results showed that public choice campuses perform better academically, primarily in reading, than traditional campuses. Choice schools also enroll less at-risk groups than traditional schools. Implications, practically and theoretically, are discussed along with plans for future research.