Open research questions in School Choice and Performance

What the literature leaves open

• Based on the conclusions of the study, the following recommendations are offered. 1. School heads and administrators may strengthen communication and collaboration systems by conducting regular consultative meetings, utilizing official communication platforms, and ensuring the timely dissemination of information to promote transparency and meaningful teacher participation in school-wide decision-making. 2. Schools may institutionalize participatory decision-making by providing teachers with meaningful representation in school committees and working groups responsible for curriculum planning, policy development, resource allocation, and program evaluation. 3. Schools and the Schools Division Office may expand professional development opportunities by providing equitable access to in-service training on collaborative leadership, participatory governance, data-informed decision-making, and evidence-based school management for both teachers and school administrators. 4. Schools may establish mentoring or coaching programs in which experienced teachers support less experienced colleagues in developing the knowledge, confidence, and leadership skills necessary for effective participation in school-wide decision-making. 5. School administrators and educational leaders may pursue advanced professional development and graduate studies that enhance their competencies in instructional leadership, collaborative governance, evidenceinformed decision-making, and teacher empowerment. 6. Schools may develop recognition and incentive programs that acknowledge meaningful teacher participation in school governance through both intrinsic incentives, such as leadership opportunities and professional recognition, and appropriate extrinsic rewards consistent with existing policies. 7. Schools may further strengthen collaborative school cultures by promoting shared leadership practices that encourage teachers' active participation in planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and continuous improvement of school programs. 8. School administrators may review existing workload management practices by allocating dedicated time for collaborative planning and decision-making activities and by minimizing unnecessary non-teaching tasks that may limit teacher participation. 9. Schools and the Schools Division Office may develop and regularly monitor action plans that address barriers to teacher participation, particularly those related to communication, organizational support, professional development, and collaborative governance. 10.

  Teacher involvement in school-wide program decision-making: Evidence from public schools in the Schools Division of Catbalogan City · 2026 · DOI

• In Kenya, it remains to be seen how this practice will align with the ongoing transition to CBC, which prioritises individual learner interests (KICD, 2019).

  Physics Selection in Public Secondary Schools in Kenya: The Role of Entry Behaviour · 2026 · DOI

• One of the primary limitations of this study is its cross-sectional nature and reliance solely on data from the year 2018. An additional limitation of this study relates to the historical context of the data.

  Exploring Urban Factors Influencing Academic Achievement: An International Comparative Study · 2026 · DOI

• Third, although the scale development followed DeVellis’s (2012) recommended procedures, including expert reviews and factor analyses, the psychometric properties of the scale could be further validated through test-retest reliability or cross-validation with independent samples. (3) Awareness among education stakeholders about grade inflation is important, as literature review has shown insufficient research on this concept.

  Determining factors influencing middle school teachers in demonstrating test score inflation · 2026 · DOI

• While a relatively large research base shows that teacher collaboration can affect teacher turnover, little is known about whether the inverse is true—can teacher turnover affect collaboration? To the extent that the relationship between teacher turnover and collaboration is interdependent, models that fail to account for a cyclical relationship will misattribute the effects of collaboration to turnover, and vice versa.

  Does Teacher Turnover Disrupt Collaboration in Schools? · 2026 · DOI

• This paper argues that these conflicting results stem from a methodological artifact: because boys report their parents’ education less accurately than girls do, the source of parental education data in large-scale assessments fundamentally shapes estimates of the SES–gender interaction.

  Parent versus student reporting of parental education drives contradictory gender patterns in achievement gradients · 2026 · DOI

• Physician assistant/associate (PA) programs often use undergraduate grade point average (GPA), one measure of academic achievement, to assess applicants for admission, but the extent to which SES impacts undergraduate academic achievement remains unexplored.

  Undergraduate Grade Point Average Mediates the Relationship Between Childhood Socioeconomic Indicators and Likelihood of Physician Assistant/Associate Matriculation · 2026 · DOI

• The study was restricted to a single area, and that was the Ashanti region. All the country’s senior high schools ought to be investigated for a more comprehensive report. Unfortunately, time and financial constraints prevented this from happening. The study did not address the opinions of all parties involved in the education sector because doing so would require a significant investment of time and funds. Due to their accessibility, the research was also restricted to second-cycle school students’ only in the region of Ashanti. For this study, the researcher also had to juggle teaching and other obligations. Finally, the opportunity to respond to the research questionnaires was limited to a portion of students in second-cycle schools.

  Investigating the moderate effect of school location and gender on the relationship between school type and students’ mathematics achievement · 2026 · DOI

• However, it remains unclear how different classroom compositions shape TQ and how TQ is distributed between advantaged and disadvantaged classrooms in Norway.

  Mathematics teaching quality in classrooms of different compositions in Norway · 2025 · DOI

• The current study bridges this gap in the literature by examining the private versus public school difference in literacy in key areas such as mathematics, reading, and science using recent comparable nationally representative samples from 61 economies.

  Difference in Literacy between Private and Public Schools: Evidence from a Survey of 61 Economies · 2024 · DOI

• The aim of this article is to fill this gap in research through comprehensive and in-depth analyses of the Slovenian student, school and teacher data from the international Responses to Educational Disruption Survey (REDS), conducted in 2020/2021.

  Students’ and teachers’ perceptions of students’ academic outcomes in Slovenia: evidence from REDS data · 2023 · DOI

• Abstract A growing literature has documented the importance of school socio‐economic status (SES) composition to children's academic performance, but the channels through which school SES affects individual achievement remain poorly understood.

  Why does school socio‐economic composition matter to adolescents’ academic performance? Role of classroom climate and school resources · 2023 · DOI

• The limited access, regulation, and review of AZB data to date has left a gap in the knowledge base, having the potential to leave intact (and exacerbate) patterns of segregation that maintain inequities in educational opportunity.

  Data Access and the Study of Educational Equity: Implications from a National School Boundary Data Collection Effort · 2022 · DOI

• Abstract School attendance zone boundary (AZB) data remain relatively underdocumented and understudied within the field of education, despite their critical implications for educational (in)equity.

  Data Access and the Study of Educational Equity: Implications from a National School Boundary Data Collection Effort · 2022 · DOI

• Starting from insights into the inequalities that stem from the effect students’ cultural capital has on their academic achievement, and relatively scarce evidence on whether classroom-level pedagogical interventions could help reduce those inequalities, in this study we aim to explore whether teacher support moderates the relationship between cultural capital and students’ reading performance.

  Can teacher support reduce inequalities in education? Re-examining the relationship between cultural capital and achievement · 2022 · DOI

• We find poor alignment between the textbooks in our sample and the Common Core State Standards and low overall levels of cognitive demand, but only limited evidence of systematic differences in alignment or cognitive demand coverage associated with student characteristics at the school or district level.

  The Equitable Distribution of Opportunity to Learn in Mathematics Textbooks · 2021 · DOI

• The lack of data tracking the quality of publicly funded ECE programs at scale creates a substantial evidence gap for policymakers attempting to weigh the returns on, and future of, quality improvement policies.

  Systemwide Quality Improvement in Early Childhood Education: Evidence From Louisiana · 2021 · DOI

• Yet many of the technical details underpinning PISA remain poorly understood—particularly amongst non‐specialists—including important nuances surrounding the representivity of the data.

  PISA 2018 in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales: Is the data really representative of all four corners of the UK? · 2021 · DOI

• Although extensive research has addressed how public charter school districts spend money to recruit teachers, complete capital projects, and hire school leaders, no studies have examined how public charter school districts compete with traditional public school districts online to drive traffic and interest in their schools.

  Do Charter Schools Outspend Public Schools Online? Evidence from Texas · 2021 · DOI

• , capital) funding in California from fiscal years 1986–87 to 2015–16, we find that funding for school construction and modernization varies widely across districts.

  How Much Does Public School Facility Funding Depend on Property Wealth? · 2021 · DOI

• We also argue that design restrictions for PSPS may not be enough when private providers are scarce or difficult to attract for serving the most disadvantaged population.

  Publicly subsidized private schools in developing countries: Lessons from Colombia · 2021 · DOI

• Although 2013–2014 Texas policy mandated districts self-assess their gifted programs using the community and student engagement performance rating system, little is known about how districts determined their self-assessment ratings.

  Equitable Access, Locale, Funding, and the Alignment to Performance Ratings in Texas Gifted Programs · 2021 · DOI

• Mixed evidence on the relationship between school closure and COVID-19 prevalence could reflect focus on large-scale levels of geography, limited ability to address endogeneity, and demographic variation.

  Unequal Opportunity Spreaders: Higher COVID-19 Deaths with Later School Closure in the United States · 2021 · DOI

• Purpose: Recent attempts to measure schools’ influence on students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) show differences across schools, but whether these estimated differences measure the true effects of schools remain unclear.

  Stability of School Contributions to Student Social-Emotional Learning Gains · 2021 · DOI

• The understanding of PPP effects is limited by the prevalence of generalist analyses that neglect to acknowledge the exceptional heterogeneity of the policy frameworks in which PPPs crystallize.

  How and why policy design matters: understanding the diverging effects of public-private partnerships in education · 2020 · DOI

Most-cited papers in School Choice and Performance

• Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood · American Economic Review · 2014 · 1,144 citations
• Promoting School Connectedness: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health · Journal of School Health · 2002 · 743 citations
• Dropping Out of Middle School: A Multilevel Analysis of Students and Schools · American Educational Research Journal · 1995 · 610 citations
• Cultural Capital, Gender, and School Success: The Role of Habitus · Sociology of Education · 2002 · 603 citations
• A Research Synthesis of the Associations Between Socioeconomic Background, Inequality, School Climate, and Academic Achievement · Review of Educational Research · 2016 · 439 citations
• 60 Years After<i>Brown</i>: Trends and Consequences of School Segregation · Annual Review of Sociology · 2014 · 427 citations
• School-Based Peer Effects and Juvenile Behavior · The Review of Economics and Statistics · 2001 · 405 citations
• The Value of School Facility Investments: Evidence from a Dynamic Regression Discontinuity Design^* · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2010 · 398 citations
• The Punishment Gap: School Suspension and Racial Disparities in Achievement · Social Problems · 2016 · 326 citations
• Discretion and Disproportionality · AERA Open · 2016 · 300 citations

Most recent work

• Localized Teacher Recruitment Through “Grow‐Your‐Own”: Impacts of the High School Teacher Academy of Maryland Program · Journal of Policy Analysis and Management · 2026
• Is Reading an Upstream Predictor of Science and Mathematics Achievements in PISA? A Bayesian Network Analysis for Policy Educational Interventions on Socio‐Economic Dispersion and Gender Gaps · Systems Research and Behavioral Science · 2026
• Gendered patterns in teacher assessment and blind grading: evidence from 366,665 upper secondary grades in Norway · Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research · 2026
• From Aspiration to Action: Socioeconomic Disparity in the Translation of Educational Goals into Time Investment · Sociology of Education · 2026
• Into DEEP: Pinpointing and Profiling Disciplinary Excellence and Exemplary Performance in Texas Urban Schools · Urban Education · 2026
• Redesigning choice to tackle school segregation: the impact of Barcelona’s desegregation policies · Policy Studies · 2026
• Shattered dreams, reclaimed futures: social stratification affecting at-risk and out-of-school children and addressing strategies for reintegration into formal schooling · International Journal of Adolescence and Youth · 2026
• Class is in session: social class discrimination and academic outcomes among adolescents · Social Psychology of Education · 2026
• Larger immigrant-native academic achievement gaps in EU countries: A study of the PISA assessment from 2006 to 2022 · Studies In Educational Evaluation · 2026
• Between-school inequalities in access to science and mathematics curricula in a marketized education system: The case of Australia · Research in Comparative and International Education · 2026

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