School Choice and Student Transfers

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the characteristics that influence the number of transfers between school districts. Using data on 2018–19 transfers between Indiana’s 289 traditional public school districts, we examine observed transfer flows. Model results show that standardized test scores and distance between school districts have the largest impact on the number of student transfers between districts. Districts with more charter schools have more students transferring between public school districts. The number of private schools in a district has no impact on public school transfers.

KEYWORDS:

• Open enrollment
• school vouchers
• charter schools
• student mobility
• interdistrict choice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This includes charter schools and virtual charter schools.

2. The Indiana Department of Education does not provide aggregate data on homeschooled students.

3. Empirical analysis of factors influencing open enrollment flows is limited in part due to data availability. For example, open enrollment in Indiana has been authorized since 2009 but data on enrollment flows has only been available since 2017. In addition, charter schools and more recently voucher programs have received much more policy (and media) attention.

4. NCES, State Educational Reforms, Table 4.2, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/tab4_2.asp.

5. See IC 20–26-11-32 for details on the transfer process.

6. Traditional public school districts with no incoming public transfers were Washington Community Schools, Greensburg Community Schools, Crothersville Community Schools, Gary Community Schools, Michigan City Area Schools, MSD Pike Township, MSD Warren Township, School of the Town of Speedway and MSD Warren County. We do not know if these districts chose not to accept transfers or if no families wanted to transfer their students into these districts.

7. The Indiana General Assembly sets the foundation amount every two years for the following two years as part of the biennial budget process.

8. IC 20–24 are the legal statutes governing charter schools.

9. IC 20–51-4 are the legal statutes governing the Choice Scholarship program.

10. We examine transfers during the prepandemic period. Studies such as Flanders (2021) examine the pandemic period and show that participation in school choice programs increased during the pandemic if home districts chose to offer only virtual education programs.

11. The datasets used in the analysis were constructed from publicly available sources and are available from the authors on request.

12. We use Huber-White Hinkley heteroskedasticity consistent standard errors.

13. Indiana’s standardized test, the ISTEP, is given annually to students in grades 3 through 8. We use the district’s total pass rate for these grades.

14. The omitted racial variables are White, not Hispanic; American Indiana; Asian; Multiracial and Pacific Islander.

15. The residential enrollment base is the number of school age children who live in the district (not including home school students).

16. The excluded districts are also the districts with the most charter schools in the state.