Factors Driving School Choice in North Carolina During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In recent years, laws and regulations surrounding the enactment of new private school choice programs and the expansion of existing ones have broadened eligibility rules to include more and different types of students. These changes spurred an acceleration in usage brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, when families explored alternative schooling models for their children who were otherwise on track to attend a traditional public school. How do today's users differ from those who participated in the early, targeted programs? And how have the reasons families offer to explain their application and subsequent usage of private school vouchers evolved over time? We use descriptive statistics to analyze how the characteristics of applicants to North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship program have changed since the program began and during the COVID-19 pandemic. These include grade level, county of residence, race/ethnicity, sex, household size, and household income. We rely on administrative data that is collected annually by the program operator, the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority. These data allow us to document the changes that have occurred to the profile of the typical voucher applicant as this program has grown and evolved. We also describe the results of parent surveys administered to first-time applicants for school years 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24. This research sheds light on student experiences during the peak pandemic years, when many schools were operating remotely, and during the reopening and academic recovery and re- engagement phase, offering insight into the evolving nature of private and public school dynamics in states that have created near-universal private school choice programs in recent years.