IES Blog

Institute of Education Sciences

New Report on School Choice in the United States

Across the United States, parents have an increasing number of educational options for their children, including traditional public schools, public charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling. Although the majority of students attend traditional public schools, the numbers of students attending public charter schools or homeschool programs are growing, according to recently released data.

Using survey data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the newly released School Choice in the United States: 2019 report provides information on student enrollment; individual, family, and school characteristics of students enrolled in different educational settings; achievement; school crime and safety; and differences in the school choice options that parents select and their satisfaction with their children’s school.

 

School Enrollment Trends

Over time, the numbers of students enrolled in traditional public schools, public charter schools, and homeschool programs have increased (see figure 1). Enrollment in traditional public schools was 1 percent higher in fall 2016 (47.3 million) than in fall 2000 (46.6 million). 

Public charter schools grew at a much more rapid rate in that time, with enrollment increasing by more than 500 percent, from 0.4 million in fall 2000 to 3.0 million in fall 2016. Enrollment in homeschool programs has also grown, nearly doubling from 1999 (0.9 million) to 2016 (1.7 million). However, private school enrollment fell 4 percent between fall 1999 and fall 2015.

 


Figure 1. Enrollment in traditional public schools, public charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), “Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey,” 2000–01 and 2016–17; Private School Universe Survey (PSS), 1999–2000 and 2015–16; Parent Survey and Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program (Parent-NHES:1999 and PFI-NHES:2016).


 

Student and School Characteristics

This report also explores enrollment in different school options across a range of characteristics, including students’ racial/ethnic background (see figure 2), family composition, household poverty status, parent education and employment, and more.

For example, public schools enrolled higher percentages of Black and Hispanic students than did private schools in fall 2015. Within the public school sector, public charter schools enrolled higher percentages of Black and Hispanic students and lower percentages of White and Asian/Pacific Islander students than did traditional public schools in fall 2016. And, the percentages of students who were homeschooled in 2016 were higher for White and Hispanic students than for Black and Asian students.

 


Figure 2. Percentage distribution of elementary and secondary enrollment, by school type and student race/ethnicity: 2015 and 2016
 

#Rounds to zero.
NOTE: Figure excludes homeschooled children. Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity. Although rounded numbers are displayed, the figures are based on unrounded data. Detail may not sum to totals because of rounding.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Private School Universe Survey (PSS), 2015–16; and Common Core of Data (CCD), "Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey," 2016–17.


 

In 2016, about 58 percent of public charter school students were enrolled in schools in cities, compared with 29 percent of traditional public school students; traditional public school students were more likely than public charter school students to attend schools in suburban areas, towns, and rural areas.

In 2015, about 43 percent of private school students were enrolled in schools in cities, and 40 percent were enrolled in schools in suburban areas. However, homeschooling in 2016 was more prevalent among students in rural areas than among those in cities and suburban areas.

 

Parental Choice

In 2016, parents whose children were enrolled in public or private schools were asked about their decisions regarding school choice. Twenty-eight percent of students had parents who reported that they had considered schools other than the one in which their children were currently enrolled, and 80 percent had parents who reported that their children’s current school was their first choice. Among public school students, 20 percent had parents who reported they moved to their current neighborhood so their children could attend their current public school.

Each of these percentages was higher for students from nonpoor households than for students from near-poor or poor households (see figure 3). For example, 31 percent of students in nonpoor households had parents who reported that they considered other schools for their children, compared with 23 percent of students in near-poor households and 21 percent of students in poor households.

 


Figure 3. Percentage of students enrolled in grades 1 through 12 whose parents considered other schools, reported current school was their first choice, or moved to their current neighborhood for the public school, by family poverty status: 2016

1 Includes public school students only. Private school students are excluded.
NOTE: Data exclude homeschooled children.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program (PFI-NCES:2016).


 

Browse the full School Choice in the United States: 2019 report to learn more about these and other trends related to school choice and student enrollment.

 

By Amy Rathbun and Ke Wang, AIR

Education at a Glance 2019: Putting U.S. Data in a Global Context

International comparisons provide reference points for researchers and policy analysts to understand trends and patterns in national education data and are important as U.S. students compete in an increasingly global economy.

Education at a Glance, an annual publication produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), provides data on the structure, finances, and progress of education systems in 36 OECD countries, including the United States, as well as a number of OECD partner countries. The report also includes state-level information on key benchmarks to inform state and local policies on global competitiveness. 

The recently released 2019 edition of the report shows that the United States is above the international average on some measures, such as participation in and funding of higher education, but lags behind in others, such as participation in early childhood education programs.

 

Distribution of 25- to 34-Year-Olds With a College Education, by Level of Education

The percentage of U.S. 25- to 34-year-olds with an associate’s or bachelor’s degree increased by 8 percentage points between 2008 and 2018, reaching 49 percent, compared with the OECD average of 44 percent. However, the attainment rates varied widely across the United States in 2017, from 32 percent for those living in Louisiana and West Virginia to 58 percent for those living in Massachusetts and 73 percent for those living in the District of Columbia.

The percentage of U.S. students completing a bachelor’s degree within 4 years was 38 percent in 2018, about the same as the average among OECD countries with available data (39 percent); however, after an additional 2 years, the U.S. graduation rate (69 percent) was slightly above the OECD average of 67 percent (achieved after 3 years). While a higher percentage of U.S. young adults had completed a bachelor’s degree compared with young adults in other OECD countries, a lower percentage had completed a master’s or doctoral degree. Eleven percent of 25- to 34-year-olds in the United States had completed a master’s or doctoral degree, compared with an average of 15 percent across OECD countries.

 

Higher Education Spending

U.S. spending on higher education is also relatively high compared with the OECD average, in both absolute and relative terms. The United States spent $30,165 per higher education student in 2017, the second-highest amount after Luxembourg and nearly double the OECD average ($15,556). Also, U.S. spending on higher education as a percentage of GDP (2.5 percent) was substantially higher than the OECD average (1.5 percent). These total expenditures include amounts received from governments, students, and all other sources. 

 

Early Childhood Education

Contrasting with enrollment patterns at the higher education level, the level of participation in early childhood education programs in the United States is below the OECD average and falling further behind. Between 2005 and 2017, average enrollment rates for 3- to 5-year-olds across OECD countries increased from 76 to 86 percent. In contrast, the rate in the United States remained stable at 66 percent during this time period. Among U.S. states, the 2017 enrollment rates for 3- to 5-year-olds ranged from less than 50 percent in Idaho, North Dakota, and Wyoming to more than 70 percent in Connecticut, the District of Columbia, and New Jersey.

Going deeper into the data, on average, 88 percent of 4-year-olds in OECD countries were enrolled in education programs in 2017, compared with 66 percent in the United States. The enrollment rate for 3-year-olds in the United States was 42 percent, compared with the OECD average of 77 percent.

 

Gender Gaps in Employment

Education at a Glance also looks at employment and other outcomes from education. The report found that the 2017 gender gap in employment rates was lower for those who had completed higher levels of education. This pattern holds in the United States, where the gender gap in the employment rate was particularly high among 25- to 34-year-olds who had not completed high school. For this age group, the employment rate was 73 percent for men and 41 percent for women, a difference of 32 percentage points, compared with the average difference of 28 percentage points across OECD countries. The gender gap in the employment rate was 14 percentage points among U.S. adults with only a high school education and 7 percentage points among those who had completed college.

In 2017, the gender differences in average earnings were also wider in the United States than in the OECD averages. These gender gaps in earnings between male and female full-time workers existed across all levels of education. In the United States, college-educated 25- to 64-year-old women earned 71 percent of what their male peers earned. This gender gap was wider than for all other OECD countries except for Chile, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Poland, and the Slovak Republic.

This is just a sample of the information that can be found in Education at a Glance 2019. You can also find information on the working conditions of teachers, including time spent in the classroom and salary data; student/teacher ratios; college tuitions and loans; and education finance and per student expenditures. Education at a Glance also contains data on the international United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to education.

Browse the full report to see how the United States compares with other countries on these important education-related topics.

 


Percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds with a college education, by level of education: 2018

1 Year of reference differs from 2018 (see NOTE).                                                                                                                                       

NOTE: Reporting of some countries is not consistent with international categories. Please refer to Education at a Glance Database, http://stats.oecd.org. for details. Comparisons follow International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 2011 education levels: “Associate’s or similar degrees” refers to ISCED 2011 level 5, “Bachelor’s or equivalent” refers to level 6, “Master’s or equivalent” refers to level 7, and “Doctoral or equivalent” refers to level 8. Countries are ranked in descending order of the total percentage of tertiary-educated 25- to 34-year-olds. See Annex 3 for additional notes (https://doi.org/10.1787/f8d7880d-en).

SOURCE: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2019), Education at a Glance Database, http://stats.oecd.org


 

By Thomas Snyder 

Now Available! New Nationally Representative Data on the Socioemotional Development of Elementary School Students

In an earlier blog post, we shared that one of our survey programs—the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) program—was collecting data on socioemotional development to better understand how different academic and nonacademic factors may influence a child’s early schooling experiences. New data are now available from the spring 2016 public-use dataset for the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–11 (ECLS-K:2011). This file contains data from every round of the ECLS-K:2011, from kindergarten through fifth grade.

For decades, the National Center for Education Statistics and other researchers have used ECLS data to examine questions about elementary school students’ socioemotional development. For instance, as seen in the excerpt below, an earlier wave of data was used to develop an indicator in the America’s Children report that looks at first-time kindergartners’ scores on socioemotional scales and how these students may victimize their peers. ECLS data are rich with information that can be used to analyze the influence of family, school, community, and individual factors on students’ development, early learning, and performance in school.

In the most recent ECLS program study, the ECLS-K:2011 collected information on its sample of kindergartners during the 2010–11 school year and then at least once during every academic year thereafter until 2015–16, when most of the students were in fifth grade. The ECLS-K:2011 data allow researchers to study how students’ socioemotional skills develop over time through reports from the students themselves and from key people in those students’ lives, including their parents, before- and after-school care providers, teachers, and school administrators.

Here’s a peek into the socioemotional development measures included the ECLS-K:2011:

  • Students completed questionnaires about their relationships with peers, social distress, peer victimization, and satisfaction with different aspects of their lives.
  • Teachers used their experiences with students in their classrooms to provide information about students’ approaches to learning (e.g., eagerness to learn, self-direction, attentiveness), social skills, and problem behaviors, as well as their own closeness and conflict with students.
  • Parents provided separate reports on much of the same information reported by teachers to provide a richer picture of their child’s development through a different lens.

For more information on the measures of socioemotional development included in the ECLS-K:2011, please see our study instruments or email the ECLS study team. Also, keep an eye out for future online training modules for the ECLS-K:2011, which will be released in fall 2019 or early 2020. To be alerted about the release of the free online trainings, email the ECLS study team at ECLS@ed.gov and ask to be added to the ECLS listserv.

 


Excerpt from America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2017


 

By Jill Carlivati McCarroll and Gail M. Mulligan

 

New Data Tell the Story of Public and Private Schools and Their Leaders

Which schools would you guess, on average, spend more instructional time on English, reading, and language arts—public schools or private schools? How about on mathematics?

These questions and many others are answered in recently released reports on U.S. public and private schools and principals. The data in these reports are from the 2017–18 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), which is administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). NTPS previously collected data from public schools, principals, and teachers during the 2015–16 school year, but this is the first private school collection since the 2011–12 school year. (The latest NTPS data on public and private school teachers will be released later this year.)

The NTPS collects data about principals’ educational backgrounds and goals, as well as the climate of their schools and other general information about their schools and special programs and services provided. These data serve as a resource for researchers, policymakers, and the general public who are interested in understanding the current experiences and conditions of U.S. public and private schools.

The 2017–18 NTPS featured several new topic areas, such as the following:

  • School instruction time. Overall, schools reported that third-graders spent a weekly average of 500 minutes on instruction in English, reading, and language arts; 350 minutes on instruction in arithmetic or mathematics; and 170 minutes each on instruction in science and social studies or history. Here are some data to answer the questions from the beginning of this post:
    • Public schools reported that third-graders spent a weekly average of 540 minutes on instruction in English, reading, and language arts; 370 minutes on instruction in arithmetic or mathematics; 170 minutes on instruction in science; and 160 minutes on instruction in social studies or history.
    • Private schools reported that third-graders spent a weekly average of 400 minutes on instruction in English, reading, and language arts; 280 minutes on instruction in arithmetic or mathematics; and 170 minutes each on instruction in science and social studies or history.
       

Figure 1. Average minutes reported by public and private schools that third-grade students spend on selected subjects per week: 2017–18

NOTE: Schools that reported 0 minutes per week for a subject were excluded from the calculations of average minutes per week.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), “Public School and Private School Documentation Data Files,” 2017–18. Please see Characteristics of Public and Private Elementary and Secondary Schools in the United States: Results From the 2017–18 National Teacher and Principal Survey First Look, table 7.


 

  • ​Principals’ professional development. Overall, 83 percent of all principals reported participating in any professional development activities in the 2016–17 school year. Specifically, 85 percent of public school principals and 77 percent of private school principals reported doing so.
  • Evaluation of principals. Among public school principals, relatively more principals in traditional public schools were evaluated during the last school year than were principals in public charter schools (79 and 69 percent, respectively). Relatively more private school principals in Catholic and nonsectarian schools (63 and 58 percent, respectively) were evaluated during the last school year than were principals in other religious schools (41 percent).

Data files for the 2017–18 school and principal questionnaires will be released later this year. In order to protect the identities of responding schools and principals, researchers must apply for a restricted-use license to access the full restricted-use data files. Data will also be available through NCES’ online data tool, DataLab, where users can create custom tables and regressions without a restricted-use license.

 

By Maura Spiegelman

New Data Available on Crime and Safety in Public Schools

The prevalence of crime in America’s public schools continues to be a topic of much concern and discussion among parents, students, educators, and policymakers. A new report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) provides the latest data to help inform conversations and debate about school safety.

The report, Crime, Violence, Discipline, and Safety in U.S. Public Schools, presents new information from the 2017–18 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS). SSOCS is a nationally representative survey of school principals that collects detailed information on both incidents of crime in U.S. public schools and the practices and programs schools have implemented to promote school safety.

This report presents selected findings on a wide range of topics, including violent and nonviolent incidents, disciplinary problems and actions, security measures, security staff, mental health services, and limitations on crime prevention. In addition to presenting updates for data that have been published in prior SSOCS reports, the new report highlights topics not covered in previous reports, including the number of incidents involving the use or possession of a firearm or explosive device at school as well as the percentage of schools that have “panic buttons” or silent alarms that directly connect to law enforcement in the event of an incident.

Data on both school crime incidents and school safety practices are available by various school characteristics, such as school type, enrollment size, and locale (i.e., whether the school is located in an urban, suburban, or rural area).  

One key finding highlighted in the report is that most schools have written plans for various emergency scenarios. In school year 2017–18, the most common types of plans reported were for responses to natural disasters (94 percent), active shooters (92 percent), and bomb threats or incidents (91 percent).

 



 

The report also presented other key findings from the 2017–18 school year:

  • Seventy-one percent of U.S. public schools reported that at least one violent incident occurred at school during the school year.
  • Three percent of schools reported that there was at least one incident involving the possession of a firearm or explosive device at their school.
  • Forty-six percent of traditional public schools had a school resource officer present at school at least once a week, compared with only 19 percent of charter schools. Conversely, a higher percentage of charter schools than of traditional public schools had a security guard or other security personnel present at least once a week (35 vs. 21 percent).
  • Restorative circles were used more frequently in schools with a higher enrollment of minority students. A restorative circle is a formal mediation process led by a facilitator who brings affected parties of a problem together to explore what happened, reflect on their roles, and find solutions that address individual and community concerns. Among schools with at least 50 percent minority enrollment, half (50 percent) reported involving students in restorative circles. However, in schools with lower minority enrollment (20 to 50 percent), a lower percentage of schools reported involving students in restorative circles (38 percent).
  • Fifty-one percent of schools provided diagnostic mental health assessments to evaluate students for mental health disorders, and 38 percent provided treatment to students for mental health disorders.

To access the full report, please visit https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019061.pdf. SSOCS:2018 data files will be released later this year. Due to the sensitive nature of SSOCS data, researchers must apply for a restricted-use license to access the full SSOCS:2018 restricted-use data file. A public-use data file—with some sensitive variables removed—will be released after the restricted-use data file.

 

By Sam Correa and Melissa Diliberti (AIR) and Rachel Hansen (NCES)