How clear are the signals that parents send when they choose to leave a public school to take advantage of a voucher program? This study explores this question in the context of Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program from 1990 to 1995. Two broad findings are discussed. First, parents do not always send clear signals about their levels of satisfaction when they express an interest in removing their children from public schools. Second, these signals have important implications for the design of voucher programs or other quasi-markets for education, for inferences school officials might draw from parents’decisions, and for the way scholars study choice programs.
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