Is School Choice a “Trojan Horse?” The Effects of School Choice Laws on Homeschool Prevalence

ABSTRACT

School choice programs such as vouchers and charter schools expand lower cost schooling options for families. We examine how these expansions affect the prevalence of homeschooling. School choice programs may reduce homeschooling if parents that otherwise would have homeschooled their children instead use a school choice program. Homeschooling may increase if school choice programs act as a “Trojan Horse” by expanding government control in otherwise independent schools, pushing some families away from those options. We empirically examine the legitimacy of such claims by looking at the effects of public and private school choice programs on the market share of homeschooling. We use difference-in-differences to estimate whether voucher programs and charter schools influence homeschooling.

Acknowledgments

We thank Albert Cheng for his useful comments.

Notes

¹ More recently, some states have adopted Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). An ESA directly provide education funding for students not currently enrolled in public schools; these funds may be spent on private school tuition as well as curriculum and educational materials for homeschooled students. Only two states adopted educational savings account during our sample period: Arizona and Florida. We do not have homeschooling data for Arizona. Florida adopted the law in summer 2014, at the end of the sample period; we omit these two observations from the sample: Florida in 2014 and 2015.

² Rachana Bhatt generously provided her data on home school legislation.

³ For this sample of 150 state-years, the mean of percent homeschooled is 1.7% and the mean of percent non-schooled is 13.3%.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Corey A. DeAngelis

Corey A. DeAngelis is the Director of School Choice at the Reason Foundation and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. His research primarily focuses on the effects of school choice programs on non-academic outcomes such as criminal activity, character skills, mental health, political participation, and schooling supply. Corey received his PhD in Education Policy from the University of Arkansas.

Angela K. Dills is a Professor of Economics and the Gimelstob-Landry Distinguished Professor for Regional Economic Development at Western Carolina University. Her research interests center around education, health, and drug and alcohol policy. She serves on the editorial boards of the Eastern Economic Journal and Economics of Education Review. Angela received her Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University.