School Choice and Parental Satisfaction with Curriculum: National Evidence from a Large Virtual Charter School Operator

Abstract

Access to virtual public charter schools might improve the match between school curriculum and parental values. This study uses national survey data to examine the degree to which parents agree that schools meet their needs when it comes to the curriculum. Regression analyses indicate that parents with children enrolled in virtual charter schools are substantially more likely than parents with children enrolled in district-run public schools to “strongly agree” with nine measures of curriculum alignment, transparency, and control. For example, the fully specified model indicates that families with children in virtual charter schools are 20 percentage points more likely than families with children in district-run public schools to “strongly agree” that their child’s school teaches values that are consistent with their own. These results hold after controlling for student gender, race, grade level, state of residence, free-and-reduced-price lunch status, and parent political affiliation, and are robust to various analytic techniques and specifications.

Keywords: charter schools, school choice, parental values, school curriculum

JEL Classification: I28, I20