Notes: Are They Schools of Choice? A Response to Sosniak and Ethington

Abstract

Sosniak and Ethington (1992) conclude that their analysis of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) provides “little support for the argument that public school choice, as currently implemented, is an inventive mechanism for altering the academic lives of students and teachers.” Three issues that bring their conclusion into question are addressed: (a) the method used to classify public schools of choice, (b) problems that arise because of the likelihood of a significant number of “schools within a school” in NELS:88 base-year school sample, and (c) the matching methodology employed in examining differences between “choice” and “non-choice” schools.