If You Build It This Way, They Will Come: Identifying Determinants of School Choice Take-Up

More students are using private school choice policies as those initiatives proliferate across the U.S. Most research on school choice examines effects on student outcomes. However, choice policies lack uniform design and consistent student take-up rates. We track take-up rates initially and over time in nearly all existing school choice programs to identify the impact of specific design features and state contextual factors on student participation, analyzing them from the demand side using an economic, market-based framework. We find that state-level measures of school bullying and student achievement are the most robust predictors of school choice enrollment rates.