Housing Market Wealth, School Choice, and Student Outcomes

Two specific projects I wish to pursue are as follows: (1) Housing market wealth, school choice, and student outcomes: I have been actively studying the effects of the changes in housing market wealth associated with the Great Recession on student test scores in Florida. I have been finding results that surprise some people at first glance – that students in families that were “underwater” during the housing market crash actually did better on state tests than those Florida families who were less financially strained by the housing market crash. My initial findings suggest an explanation – those who were “underwater” in the housing market moved away from poor-quality schools in the neighborhood where they bought homes to better-quality schools in other neighborhoods. While a financial crisis-induced move is a traumatic event that is absolutely not something that one would ever hope for, or suggest as policy, these findings indicate one small silver lining in a terrible time in recent American history. With funding from the Charles Koch Foundation, I propose to take a deeper dive into this question, by investigating whether low-income Florida families with more public and private school choice options were more able to successfully weather the Great Recession than did low-income Florida families with fewer school options. Specifically, I will investigate the interaction between exposure to Great Recession impacts and exposure for additional school choice is positive (suggesting that school choice moderated the impacts of the Great Recession) or negative (suggesting that school choice exacerbated the impacts of the Great Recession). (2) Effects of school voucher participation in Ohio on college attendance and success: A number of recent studies in states such as Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio have shown that students participating in school voucher programs tend to perform worse on state standardized tests than do eligible students remaining in tra