Why Parents Choose a School

Insights from the Schooling in America survey

Why do parents choose a particular school for their children? It sounds like a simple question, but the reality is more complicated.

First of all, we’re actually looking at two questions in a trench coat. There are positive reasons parents might like a school, which is a different type of consideration than negative factors that make them think, “No thanks, this school isn’t for me.” Notably, my colleague Mike McShane has done some really great work on these push and pull factors.

Second, we’re talking about relative choices. Most parents would probably prefer a high-quality school located close to home that features a safe environment, a good peer group, small class sizes, and ample extracurricular options. They likely value all of those things. However, it’s difficult to find a perfect Goldilocks school. So, what are parents willing to give up as an opportunity cost? That varies a lot, depending on the family.

With that in mind, we turn to Schooling in America, in which we surveyed nationally representative samples of the general population (N=1,504) and current school parents (N=2,466) from March 24^th to April 4^th, 2026.

Let’s take a look at the reasons that parents select a school in 2026, according to the survey. These reasons are organized by type of school, that way we can look at the top considerations for parents who choose a public school, charter school, private school, or homeschool option.

Starting with public school parents, we can see that their top priority is location. They’re considering whether their kid’s future school is close to home. That’s made even more clear by their third-ranked reason: assigned school district. For a lot of public school parents, choosing a school revolves around the district they’re zoned for and their local neighborhood. Their second highest ranked reason, by the way, is socialization with peers. It seems like one “pull” factor of public schools is that kids are able to socialize with a large peer group from all walks of life.

Next, let’s examine private school and charter school parents—who have a lot in common. Both rank a safe environment as their number one reason for choosing a school, followed closely by academic quality. That’s a fascinating result, because academic quality was the number one priority for both groups of parents until very recently. Safety has gradually climbed the ranks, finally taking the top spot in 2026. In their other school considerations, charter and private school parents diverge. Charter school parents are more likely to list location as their third priority, whereas private school parents rank morals/values-based instruction and discipline as being more important.

Last but not least, we come to homeschool parents. Safety is far and away the number one reason that parents choose homeschooling, and it’s not even close. Forty-four percent of homeschool parents selected a safe environment as a top reason for choosing. The next highest priority is individual one-on-one attention in school, at 27 percent.

These results provide us with a lot of information on what traits parents most value in a school, and how parent preferences vary across different school types. But most of these factors fall into the category of “pull” factors. They’re positive qualities that parents look for in a school and ultimately draw them to choose one school or another. What about “push” factors that motivate parents to leave a school?

To understand that perspective, we narrow down the survey to parents who have actually switched their child’s school. We define school switching as changing from one school type to another (e.g. public school to private school), not just standard progression from elementary school to middle school to high school.

Overall, 28 percent of parents say that their child has changed school types. That’s a fairly substantial portion.

For parents who answer yes to the school switching question, we pose a follow up: what types of issues did your child face at their former school? We can look at these challenges as “push” factors that make families want to leave a school.

The number one reason parents select for their child switching schools is excessive stress or anxiety, with 30 percent choosing it as a top reason. Academic needs being unmet is a close second reason. Bullying follows in third.

Both “academic needs” and “bullying” mirror some of the factors that we discussed earlier. School switchers often face difficulties with academic needs not being fulfilled, and inversely many parents prioritize academic quality as a top priority when choosing a school. Similarly, bullying can be considered as a mirror of safety. A kid who faces bullying at school is unlikely to experience a safe learning environment, which is a quality parents seek out in a school.

Interestingly, the top issue of excessive stress and anxiety doesn’t seem to be neatly reflected by any of top reasons that parents choose a school, at least not to my eyes. Mental health challenges can be less tangible, but they are no less impactful on how a student experiences their time at school. It’s clear that stress and anxiety play an instrumental role in informing parents whether a school is the wrong fit for their child.

Schooling in America is more of a smorgasbord than a deep dive. We only get a small window into the reasons why parents choose a school. That said, we’ve been asking these exact questions for several years, allowing us to keep track of how parent preferences change over time. That’s incredibly important, both for adapting to students’ evolving needs and informing the policy conversation in a way that’s centered around families.

Be sure to check out the full Schooling in America report for more.

This was originally published to our Substack.