School Choice: Impacts on Participants, Non-Participants, Educators, and Entrepreneurs

Call for Proposals

Submission Deadline: Friday, Jan. 23, 2026

Notification of Acceptance: Friday, March 6, 2026

Organizers: Paul E. Peterson and Michael T. Hartney

School choice policies have expanded significantly over the past decade. Nearly all states provide some form of public choice (charters, magnets, and interdistrict/open-enrollment). Roughly one in twelve public school students now attend a charter school. Half of states offer private-school choice options ranging from voucher and tax-credit scholarships to education savings account (ESA) programs.

This new landscape compels us to better understand how these diverse initiatives affect students, educators, and systems. Put simply: rigorous, evidence-based analysis is urgently needed so that policymakers can assess what is and is not working, understand the tradeoffs in different program designs, and anticipate long-term effects.

To advance this work, the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) invites paper proposals for its second annual Spring Research Conference on School Choice. PEPG aims to create a forum for dispassionate, rigorous, and policy-relevant research on a topic that often generates more heat than light. We seek to bring together a diverse group of scholars working from different perspectives, disciplines, and methodological approaches.

Topics/areas of interest for this year’s conference include – but are not limited to:

• Effects of school choice participation on students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes, including long-term outcomes, for both participants and non-participants.
• The creation and supply of new schools, including regulatory barriers, quality control, and incentives facing school operators.
• Optimal forms of regulation and oversight, including accountability metrics, assessment design, and governance arrangements.
• Mobility of students and educators across and between choice programs and traditional district systems.
• Impacts of choice programs on districts, including competitive effects, enrollment and funding shifts, district behavioral responses, and performance outcomes.
• The politics of school choice, including legislative dynamics, coalition building, media coverage, interest-group mobilization, and public opinion.
• Market dynamics, including effects of choice programs on tuition, costs, supply, and incentives for entrepreneurs to open new schools.

What to submit?

Proposals should include discussion of the significance of the topic, data availability, analytical techniques, and policy implications. Evidence that the paper will be available to share with conference participants by late April should be included. Panel proposals will be considered, but each paper in the panel will be considered on its own merits. For examples of successful proposals, authors can review the papers presented at last year’s conference here.

Conference logistics/support

One-night accommodation and economy travel costs will be provided for one participant per paper, though other authors are welcome to attend. Meals are provided during conference, including dinner on Thursday evening.