Summer Research Roundup: Three New Papers Worth Checking Out

Education research isn’t exactly beach reading, but this summer has seen several interesting papers published that provide both direct and indirect looks into issues relevant to school choice.

I’d like to highlight three particularly thought-provoking works for you to peruse on your summer vacation (or better yet, on the clock).

Don’t blame EdChoice for district budget woes by Vlad Kogan, published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Ohio State’s Vlad Kogan has a short and sweet myth-busting piece on the fiscal effects of Ohio’s EdChoice voucher program. (To be clear, we at EdChoice have no affiliation with the EdChoice voucher in Ohio. Confusing, I admit.)

As one might imagine, opponents of the program have argued that it “takes money” from Ohio public schools. But, as Kogan argues:

“The districts’ own numbers tell a different story. Crucially, state funding for Ohio public schools has in fact far exceeded what the school districts were expecting before the recent EdChoice expansion. Ohio’s school districts were on track to collect $1 billion more in state aid during the 2026 fiscal year than they were anticipating just a few years ago, with total revenues overshooting projections by nearly 20 percent.”

As we have written over and over again, public schools are suffering from financial problems due to declining enrollments driven by broader demographic changes. Ohio is no exception. From 2010-2025, Ohio public schools lost 230,000 students, a 15% decline. And that loss wasn’t due to kids leaving for private schools. At the same time, the total number of staff in Ohio public schools has actually risen by 3% since 2010, hence the fiscal crunch.

Rather than look at this simple explanation, choice opponents want to blame EdChoice.

Again, here is Kogan:

“At least in Ohio, this argument holds little water. The number of Ohio students receiving EdChoice vouchers has doubled over the past three years—the result of an eligibility expansion adopted in 2023. But, as shown in the figure below, there is no relationship between the increase in the number of students using vouchers and public school enrollment change over the same period. In fact, if anything, districts that have seen the largest increase in voucher use among their residents have actually suffered some of the smallest enrollment declines. This is not definitive proof that vouchers have no effect on enrollment, but it is the opposite of what we would see if expanded voucher access were driving students out of public schools.”

Here is that figure.

The rest of the piece looks at other arguments that choice opponents have made to try and blame fiscal problems on choice and similarly finds them wanting. The whole thing is worth reading.

School spending equity since 1976 by Sarah Reber, Beyond Deng, and Gabriela Goodman, published by the Brookings Institution

It has become an accepted fact in America that school districts that educate large numbers of poor and minority students receive less funding than districts that educate wealthier and fewer minority students.

But, as the authors of this paper point out, that isn’t true and hasn’t been true for at least 50 years. Here is the key figure:

Whether looking at the 1976-77 school year or the 2020-21 school year, the districts in America with the largest numbers of poor students and the largest numbers of non-white students spent the most of all districts in the country.

The whole paper is worth reading. It traces the history of school spending going back to the 1940s (and wisely cites Back to the Staffing Surge, written by friend of Informed Choice Ben Scafidi and published by EdChoice, as a way to explain growing costs over that time period). It tracks spending through both what was known as the “adequacy” and “equity” eras of school funding when court cases changed the ways that states contributed to public school spending.

Do we think this report will finally retire the tired talking point that poor districts receive less funding than rich ones? We live and hope.

Parental Choice Is Sending Public Schools a Message. Are They Listening? By Anna Egalite, published by Education Next

One of the most consistent findings in school choice research literature is the positive “competitive effect” of choice on students who remain in public schools. We see repeatedly that the introduction and growth of private school choice programs lead to improvements for public school students across a variety of different indicators. Whether this is because of competition, a more efficient sorting of students, or something else altogether remains to be seen, but the finding is there.

In this article, Anna Egalite of NC State documents efforts from public schools and districts across the country to respond to private school choice programs. It is a hopeful piece, showing that public schools can use choice as an impetus for innovation and improvement. As she writes:

“These moves show that public schools are not powerless in a choice-rich environment. They can create new programs, communicate more clearly, and build stronger relationships with families. But those efforts are only as good as the information behind them. If school leaders want to respond wisely to school choice, they need to know what families are choosing away from and what they are choosing toward.”

Egalite uses data from homeschool registrations in North Carolina, which helpfully include a space for parents to select why they are choosing homeschooling. Here is what the 2026 results look like:

This is a huge data set and offers a rich picture of why families in North Carolina homeschool. The number one reason, by a country mile, is dissatisfaction with public schools.

Public schools can do something about this! Sure, for the students who want to leave for religious reasons or need to travel, public schools can’t do a lot about that. But one has to imagine that a large chunk of the families who are dissatisfied with public schools could be won back over with better programs or services.

Egalite highlights multiple programs that districts have created that should serve as inspiration for other public school leaders around the country.

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Taken together, these three studies serve as powerful myth busters.

• Choice is not robbing public schools of money.
• Low-income districts and those with the highest percentage of non-white students get the most funding per pupil.
• Public schools can respond productively to choice and retain students.

Those are all positive things! Maybe there should be a little bit less fatalism and pessimism in public education today, and a bit more of a can-do spirit in response to the challenges that are an inevitable part of our changing society.

This was originally published to our Substack.