1
School Choice and the Branding of Milwaukee Private Schools
Albert Cheng*
Julie Trivitt
Patrick J. Wolf
University of Arkansas
EDRE Working Paper No. 2014-04
Last Updated August 2015
Abstract
Objective. Brands communicate information to consumers about a good or service. As school
choice policies become more widespread and more parents are faced with the task of choosing a
school for their child, schools may be branding themselves to differentiate themselves from other
schools. This article seeks to determine whether schools possess name brands that influence the
choices of parents. Methods. We use multinomial logit to model the relationship between the
educational preferences and the selection of schools for 2,600 parents participating in a large,
urban private-school voucher program. Results. We find that parental choices are systematic.
Parents who value particular school characteristics tend to choose schools with brands that
espouse those characteristics. Conclusion. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that
schools carry brands that communicate information to parents who then use the brands to help
them select schools for their children.
Keywords: Demand for Schooling, Privatization in Public Education, Religious Schools, School
Choice
*Corresponding Author; Email: [email protected]
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School Choice and the Branding of Milwaukee Private Schools
Historically, Tiebout (1956) modelled school choice as a component of the housing
location choice. School choice, however, has recently expanded from location-based to less
restrictive forms including public charter schools and private-school choice. The fact that where
a child lives is less determinative of where a child attends school is reshaping the institution of
public education. Specifically, this growth of schooling alternatives is changing the behaviors of
consumers and providers of schooling. Parents are increasingly tasked with choosing a school for
their child that would best meet their needs, but information to guide school choosers is not
always available, accurate, costless to acquire, or comprehendible (Stewart & Wolf 2014; Stigler,
196; Trivitt & Wolf, 2011).
To facilitate information-gathering, providers in a product market sector often signal
characteristics about their product through branding. Providers of schooling may be engaging in
these branding practices. Previous research has found evidence of a Catholic-school brand
among private schools in Washington DC. Parents desiring a highly-disciplined environment,
high academic standards, and moral instruction are more likely to eventually send their children
to a Catholic school (Trivitt & Wolf, 2011). The Catholic brand exists, in part, due to the highly-
organized, parochial nature of the Catholic Church and the concentration of Catholic schools in
the area. In this paper, we investigate whether other private school brands, besides the Catholic
school brand, exist and function to assist parents in choosing schools. We use surveys from a
school voucher program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that offers a broad array of schooling options
to assess whether the selection of schools by parents reflect such a branding paradigm.
In the next section, we discuss the role of market brands and describe existing school
brands in order to propose research hypotheses. We then outline our research methodology
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before presenting our findings that brand-based school characteristics valued by parents are
predictive of the type of school that they select for their children. We conclude by discussing
these findings, linking it to other findings from other research and suggesting some implications
for policy and future inquiry.
Background
The Role of Brands
Consumers seek to maximize their utility in choosing among options given a budget
constraint. In the absence of search costs, increasing the choice set may make consumers better
off and cannot make them worse off. If information is costly to acquire or process, the existence
of a large choice set may lead to fewer options considered or choices not made, called the choice
overload hypothesis. Consumers respond to choice overload by ignoring many of their options or
failing to choose, resulting in a potential welfare loss (Iyenger & Lepper, 2000; Kuksov &
Villas-Boas, 2010; Reutskaj & Hogarth, 2009; Scheibehenne, Greifenender, & Todd, 2010; Shah
& Wolford, 2007; Stigler, 1961).
When faced with potentially suboptimal consumer outcomes, brand affiliation can alter
market outcomes and may help alleviate the welfare losses associated with choice overload by
reducing information search costs. Brands play multiple roles in the consumer choice process
(Erdem, Swait, & Louviere, 2002), particularly providing shortcuts that signal information about
product characteristics (Spence, 1974). The more specific the brand signal is, the more heavily it
is relied upon (Dawar & Parker, 1994). Brands are more successful information signals when the
information they convey is accurate for goods and services (Leischnig, Geigenmuller, & Enke
2012; Triole, 1990).
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Brands are especially influential when consumers (a) need to reduce purchase risk
(Jacoby, Olson, & Haddock, 1971) and (b) lack the expertise to assess quality independently
(Rao & Monroe, 1988). Those conditions apply to the choice of school, where the cost of a bad
choice is high and few parents possess professional expertise with which to judge school quality.
Brand affiliation may be even more important in the school decision for families when vouchers
and public-school choice programs negate the information typically conveyed by product price.
Previous research suggests that parents seek informational shortcuts when choosing schools or
teachers (Jacob & Lefgren, 2007; Schneider, Teske, & Marschall, 2000; Schneider & Buckley,
2002). However, it is unclear how or even whether brands play a role in the process.
Examples of School Brands and Research Hypotheses
Brands and the value of brand equity have been widely studied in the product market but
rarely examined in the service or non-profit sectors (Berry, 2000). Despite this lack of research,
brand identities are now part of intentional marketing strategies of schools as school choice
proliferates (National Association of Independent Schools, 2010). Some of the early examples of
intentional school branding come from education management organizations, which are for-
profit firms that contract to provide school administrative and management services. These firms,
such as Edison Schools, Mosaica Education, and Aspire Public Schools, have relied on
franchising expansion strategies with strong brand affiliations. We also see school branding
through public charter school networks such as KIPP, YES Prep, Noble High Schools, and
Success Academy Charter Schools (Bennett, 2008).
Religious private schools have a particular brand because they are faith-based. Catholic
schools, for instance, have been designed and implemented as a franchise, to operate similarly in
key respects while serving communities of Catholic families throughout the country. The
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National Catholic Education Association (2013) uses affiliation with the Catholic Church as a
brand signal that denotes universally (a) high academic standards, (b) discipline and moral
values, and (c) religious instruction (Bryk, Lee, & Holland, 1993; Cohen-Zada & Justman, 2005;
Trivitt & Wolf, 2011; Sikkink, 2012). The Lutheran Church is similar to the Catholic Church in
its highly-organized, parochial structure. A Lutheran education similarly encompasses both
academic and religious instruction, emphasizing both the intellectual and the spiritual
development of the child (Isch, 2002). However, Catholic schools are more oriented than other
Christian schools towards pursuing the common good and social justice (Scanlan, 2008). These
aims are demonstrated in the Catholic schools’ effort to make tuition affordable for families from
low-income backgrounds (Bryk et al., 1993; Trivitt & Wolf, 2011). These observations lead to
our first two hypotheses:
H1: Parents who value strong disciplinary school climates and religious education tend to
choose Catholic or Lutheran schools rather than secular private schools or public schools.
Selection of a particular faith-based school also aligns with the personal religious preference of
the parent.
H2: Parents who are seeking an affordable private-school option are more likely to choose
Catholic schools.
Secular private schools in the U.S. also maintain distinctive brands. Waldorf and
Montessori private schools are popular among parents who desire a child-centered and project-
based approach to their children’s schooling (Parker, 2007). A non-religious school brand may
likewise communicate characteristics of nonsectarian schools, such as a diverse student body
(Reardon & Yun, 2003). Like traditional public schools, the nonsectarian nature of secular
private schools may bring together children from a variety of backgrounds. Such an environment
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stands in contrast to religious private schools, which may tend to serve more homogenous
communities that ascribe to a particular religious tradition (Gutmann, 1978; but see Greene,
1998; Greene & Mellow 2000). As such, we make our third hypothesis:
H3: Parents who more strongly desire racial and ethnic diversity in a student body will more
likely select secular private schools and public schools than religious private schools.
Public schools carry brand characteristics as well. Unlike private schools, they more
frequently possess the economies of scale to offer extracurricular activities, special programs,
and possess the resources to build extensive facilities (Fischel, 2009; Powell, Farrar, & Cohen,
1985). However, public schools are not known for their smaller class sizes, while private schools
are (Kelly & Scafidi, 2013; Snyder & Dillow, 2013). Previous literature also suggests that
parents, especially those who live in urban locales, send their children to private schools to
ensure a safe environment (Kelly & Scafidi, 2013; Stewart & Wolf, 2014). Hence, we
hypothesize the following:
H4: Parents who seek a wide range of facilities, special programs, and extracurricular
opportunities in their child’s school are more likely to send their children to public schools than
private schools.
H5: Parents who value small class sizes are less likely to send their children to public schools
than private schools.
H6: Parents who value school safety are less likely to send their children to public schools than
private schools.
If a branding paradigm explains the schooling marketplace, then hypotheses H1-H6 should
receive some empirical support. In the next section, we present the data and methods used to test
these hypotheses.
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Data and Methods
The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program
Our research objective is to test for the presence of school brands. Milwaukee, Wisconsin
is an ideal setting for such a test. Our data come from parents who participated in the Milwaukee
Parental Choice Program (MPCP). Established in 1990, MPCP is the first means-tested urban
private-school voucher program in the United States. The program served less than 350 students
at its inception but has steadily expanded since. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
(2012) reports that at the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year, 112 participating private
schools enrolled nearly 25,000 students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The voucher was
worth a maximum of $6,442 annually during the period of our study. Participating private
schools are required to accept the voucher as full payment for the education of the child.
Due to the length of time that MPCP has been in operation, school choice is a reality not
only for parents but also for the schools that must respond to parental preferences. Furthermore,
the Midwestern United States is home to large Lutheran and Catholic populations. The presence
of Lutheran and Catholic parents, together with wide access to a variety of religious and secular
schooling options, makes Milwaukee an ideal location to test for the presence of private-school
brands.
The MPCP also is an excellent testing ground for private-school brands because of the
way it is designed and operates. During the data collection period of 2006-07 that informs our
study, Milwaukee students in families with incomes below 175 percent of the poverty line were
eligible for private school vouchers. A match against 2010 census data showed that almost 90
percent of Milwaukee students were income eligible for the program that year (Fleming et al.
2013). Although the MPCP was capped at a total enrollment of 22,500 students in 2006-07, less
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than 17,000 students were enrolled that year, so the cap likely did little to discourage interested
parents from participating (Cowen et al. 2010). Participating private schools are required to
admit eligible students by lottery if they are over-subscribed in specific grades, and cannot
screen enrollees by their prior test scores. Our discussions with school leaders revealed that they
tended to recruit voucher students up to their enrollment targets and then stopped, resulting in the
need to conduct very few school-level/grade-level lotteries. Survey data collected about the
students in the MPCP indicate that they tend to be lower-income and lower-performing
compared to their peers in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), but have slightly more educated
and involved parents (Fleming et al. 2013).
The most distinctive feature about the MPCP is that students receive vouchers only after
they have enrolled in their private school of choice. Most school voucher programs first award
vouchers to students and only then do their families choose from among the participating
schools. In Milwaukee, because almost all students meet the income qualification, new students
enroll in particular private schools with the (reasonable) expectation that they will receive
financial support and then apply for the voucher through the school that they have chosen. Thus,
the process is similar to how college students receive financial aid and dissimilar to how most
voucher programs operate.
The fact that MPCP students enroll in a specific private school first, and then apply for
and receive a voucher to cover their education expenses, makes it an excellent venue for studying
parental preferences for schools. There are no voucher decliners, since voucher receipt comes
after school enrollment. School choices clearly signal parental preferences. As a result, only
five percent of MPCP students in our study changed from one private school to a different
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private school from 2006-07 to 2007-08 – a school-transfer rate dramatically lower than the 30
percent annual rate in MPS (Cowen et al. 2010, pp. 5-6).
Study Sample and Survey Content
We draw our data from surveys administered to parents in MPCP. A representative
sample of over 2,500 MPCP students in grades 3-9 in 2006-07 was drawn and the parents of
those students were administered telephone surveys. Nearly 75 percent of survey targets
responded, a remarkably high response rate for a telephone survey.1 Parents with multiple
children participating in MPCP completed separate surveys for each child.2 Table 1 displays
descriptive statistics for the study sample based on demographic information provided through
the survey.
≪Table 1 About Here≫
In addition to providing demographic information, parents identified the name of the
school their child attends. Using surveys of school administrators, websites, or The Milwaukee
School Chooser — a consumer guide of schools located in Milwaukee, we were able to
categorize schools by religious affiliation. Private schools were categorized as Lutheran,
Catholic, other Protestant (non-Lutheran), secular, or other religious school (primarily Jewish or
Islamic schools). Table 2 lists the number of schools in each category. Note that some parents
1 Differences between the demographic characteristics of survey respondents and non-respondents were minor. The
representation of various racial and ethnic groups differed by a few percentage points across the samples, with
African Americans and members of the polyglot category “other race” slightly less likely to respond and whites and
Hispanic participants slightly more likely to respond. Parents of students entering 3rd
grade were less likely to
respond and, consequently, parents of students entering grades 4-8 were slightly more likely to respond. A previous
study of a different issue, namely the characteristics that predicted participation in the MPCP, used the same survey
sample and confirmed that the differences between the respondents and non-respondents were so small that the
empirical results were not sensitive to whether or not sample weights were included (Fleming et al. 2013). Since
they were unnecessary, we chose not to include sample weights to adjust for non-response because doing so would
reduce data efficiency and thus estimation precision. Thus, we take our results to be representative of the full
sample of MPCP parents. 2Less than 5 percent of our analytic sample comprised of siblings and still fewer attended different types of schools.
Excluding siblings does not alter the results.
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still chose to send their child to a public school, even after being offered a private-school
voucher. In our analysis, we treat these distinctive school types as the schools’ brand affiliations.
≪Table 2 About Here≫
Parents were also asked to rate the importance of various school characteristics, using the
categories very important, important, somewhat important, or not important. Responses were
coded 1 through 4, with 4 indicating that a school characteristic was very important. These
importance ratings capture the preferences that parents desire in their children’s schools. Table 3
shows how parents rated each school characteristic.
≪Table 3 About Here≫
Empirical Strategy
We use multinomial logistic regression analysis to answer our primary research question:
Does parental selection of schools fit a branding paradigm? We estimate the following equation:
Ti = β0 + β1Ri + β2Di + ϵi, (1)
where Ti is the type of school that parent i has selected for her child, and ϵi is the error term. Di is
a vector controlling for the parent’s demographic characteristics, including annual household
income level, mother’s highest attained level of education, racial background, and personal
religious preference. Ri is a vector of each parent’s importance ratings for each school
characteristic. These importance ratings are standardized to have a mean equal to 0 and a
standard deviation equal to 1 to facilitate interpretation. Ri comprises our independent variables
of interest and estimates the odds that a parent selects a particular school type3 conditional on the
3 This model assumes that all parents had the option to select any of type of school. There may be concern that the
choices available to some parents may be restricted due to, say, transportation costs. This is a valid point, but we
argue that it is not a significant issue in the MPCP context as Milwaukee is a small urban city with an extensive,
accessible public transportation system (Greene & Marsh, 2009). Moreover, private schools were required to accept
vouchers as full payment of tuition, further lowering cost burdens for parents and limitations of choice sets.
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level of importance that he or she ascribes to a given school characteristic. We now turn to the
results.
Results
Table 4 displays the coefficient estimates of the empirical model in terms of odds ratios
when public schools are the excluded category. Each coefficient indicates the change in the odds
that a parent selects a given type of school instead of a public school for a one standard deviation
increase in his or her importance rating of the respective school characteristic. Results
demonstrate that school characteristics valued by parents are predictive of the type of school to
which they send their children. We find evidence for most, though not all, of our hypotheses.
≪Table 4 About Here≫
First, we find partial support for H1. All else equal, parents who value the offering of
religious instruction are more likely to select Catholic, Lutheran, other Protestant, Islamic, or
Jewish schools than public schools or secular private schools. The likelihood of selecting a faith-
based school is approximately twice as large as the likelihood of selecting a public or secular
private school for every one standard-deviation increase in the importance rating for the
availability of religious instruction (p<0.01). The selected religious school also aligns with the
religion practiced by the parent. We find that Catholic parents are about six times more likely to
select Catholic schools than public schools (p<0.01). Similarly, Lutheran parents are over nine
times more likely to select Lutheran schools than public schools (p<0.01).4 Contrary to H1,
parents who value strong disciplinary environments are not any more likely to select public
4 We conducted further analysis to examine whether preferences for religious instruction and subsequent school
selection differed by the parent’s religious background. We do this by re-estimating equation (1) and additionally
including terms that interacted the parent’s religious background with their importance rating for the availability of
religious instruction. None of the interaction terms were significant, suggesting that stronger preferences for
religious instruction among parents with a particular religious background are not associated with a tendency to
select into a particular school brand. Put differently, stronger preferences for religious instruction in school is
equally associated with an increased likelihood of selecting certain school brands across parents of all religious
backgrounds.
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schools than other types of schools. H2, however, possess empirical support. Parents who value
affordability are more likely to send their children to Catholic schools than public schools; every
standard-deviation increase also increases the likelihood of selecting a Catholic school by a
factor of about 1.2.
H3 also is confirmed by our analysis. Parents who prefer a more racially diverse school
environment for their children are more likely to send their children to public schools than
religious schools. All else equal, a one standard-deviation increase in the importance rating for
racial diversity is associated with a decrease in the likelihood of, for instance, selecting a
Catholic school and a Lutheran school instead of a public school by a factor of 0.75 (p<0.01) and
0.81 (p<0.05), respectively. Likewise, a one standard-deviation increase in the importance rating
for racial diversity is associated with a decrease in the likelihood of selecting a Jewish or Islamic
school instead of a public school by a factor of 0.57 (p<0.05). Notably, differences in preferences
for racial diversity in the student body do not appear to lead parents to prefer public schools over
secular private schools or vice-versa.5
Finally, H4 through H6, which were hypotheses regarding aspects of a public school
brand, received mixed support. As hypothesized in H4, there is suggestive evidence that parents
who value the availability of extracurricular opportunities are more likely to select public schools
than other types of private schools. Increasing the importance rating for the availability of
extracurricular activities by one standard deviation decreases the likelihood of selecting non-
Lutheran Protestant schools by a factor of 0.74 (p<0.01). There additionally appears to be a
5 Similar to our analysis in which we examined whether preferences for religious instruction and subsequent school
selection differed by the parent’s religious background (see footnote 4), we also investigated whether preferences for
racial diversity and subsequent school selection differed by race. We did this by estimating equation (1) while
including variables that interacted parent race with the importance rating for racial diversity. None of the interaction
terms were significant, suggesting that stronger preferences for racial diversity among parents of a particular racial
background are not associated with a tendency to select into a particular school brand. Put differently, stronger
preferences for racial diversity in school is equally associated with an increased likelihood of selecting certain
school brands across parents of all racial backgrounds.
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lower likelihood of selecting Catholic and Lutheran schools, but coefficient estimates just miss
conventional levels of statistical significance.
H5, which predicted a relationship between class-size and school-type preferences, also
received empirical support. The likelihood of selecting a Catholic, Lutheran, or secular private
school instead of a public school increases by 1.2 to 1.5 times for every standard-deviation
increase in the importance rating for class sizes. The likelihood of selecting a non-Lutheran
Protestant school is also about 1.2 times higher but not statistically significant.
Yet H6 received essentially no empirical support. The preference for public as opposed to
private schools is generally not associated with the availability of special programs, the quality
or availability of various school facilities, and school safety. Though parents who preferred
these qualities appear to prefer public schools, the differences are not statistically significant.
The only exception is the case where selection of a secular private school is associated with a
stronger preference school safety (p<0.05).
Discussion and Conclusion
We sought to investigate whether private school brands exist in a relatively mature school
marketplace. Our results demonstrate that parents who value particular aspects in a school are
more likely to send their children to a school that, according to its brand identity, offers them
comparatively more of that condition. Many of these patterns are as we anticipated if school
brands exist.
For example, the provision of religious instruction is a well-known aspect of the brand
identity of Catholic, Lutheran, and other types of Protestant schools but not of public or secular
private schools (Sikkink, 2012). Our empirical results are consistent with this fact. Parents who
value religious instruction in their schools are much more likely to send their children to schools
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with a religious tradition instead of public or secular private schools. Our results also suggest that
parents with a stronger preference for the availability of religious instruction are more likely to
choose Lutheran schools rather than Catholic or other Protestant schools. This finding points to a
stronger religious identity within Lutheran schools relative to Catholic and other Protestant
schools. This difference may be expected given the long history of Lutherans in the Milwaukee
area who have emphasized the teaching of their faith to their children (Isch, 2002). Other work
suggests that when choosing whether to prioritize religious or academic goals, Protestant schools
tend to choose the former whereas Catholic schools tend to choose the latter (Sikkink, 2012).
Parents are also more likely to send their children to a school that offers religious
instruction in their personal religious backgrounds, particularly Lutheran and Catholic parents.
This pattern of religious matching between the school’s and parent’s respective religious
traditions among MPCP participants contrasts with those from the Signature Scholarship
Program (SSP), which offered privately-funded vouchers to students in Washington DC.
Protestant parents participating in SSP tended to send their children to Catholic schools instead
of Protestant schools because they were attracted to other non-religious aspects of the Catholic-
school brand, such as a highly-disciplined environment and academic rigor (Trivitt & Wolf,
2011). The pattern of results in the two studies suggests that Catholic schools have a dominant
brand identity among DC voucher schools but that Lutheran schools are a competing brand in the
Milwaukee voucher program. In the DC program, only 13.9% of mothers indicated a preference
for the Catholic religion but 55.9% of parents indicated a Catholic school was the first choice for
their child. Of the schools participating in the voucher program 37.1% of schools were Catholic,
but they ended up with 48.8% of the participating students enrolled. In the DC program,
whenever a family chose a school affiliated with a different religion, it was overwhelmingly to
15
attend a Catholic school. In the current study of MPCP 31.2% of parents indicate a Catholic
affiliation and 44.0% of voucher students enrolled in a Catholic school with 30% of participating
schools being Catholic. Lutheran schools enrolled 19.1% of voucher students and made up 22%
of participating schools despite only 6.92% of voucher parents indicating a Lutheran affiliation.
In Milwaukee we see 51.1% of parents indicating a religious preference we classified as Other
Protestant, but only 17.2% of voucher users attended a school classified as such. The programs
are similar in that Protestant parents are sending children to schools that do not match their
religious affiliation, but in Milwaukee they are going to Catholic and Lutheran schools in
similarly disproportionate numbers with no statistically significant results on the other Protestant
indicator relative to public schools in the multinomial model.
Given the sectarian nature of religious private schools, it is not surprising that parents
who value racial diversity in their schools are more likely to send their children to secular private
or public schools rather than religious schools. Despite some empirical evidence that suggests
that religious private schools are at least as racially-integrated as traditional public schools and
instill racial tolerance in children (see Greene & Mellow, 1998; Greene, 2000; Candal & Glenn,
2012), parents do not appear to perceive religious schools as institutions that emphasize racial
diversity. Parents more commonly perceive promoting diversity to be in the purview of non-
sectarian schooling. Indeed, the system of traditional public schools ideally exists to bring all
children together in a non-sectarian environment, bridging demographic differences (Gutmann,
1978). Secular private schools are non-sectarian and may hence communicate similar aims.
Our results also comport with a theory that smaller class sizes are a part of the private
school brand. The result is consistent with Kelly and Scafidi (2013) who find that offering
smaller class sizes is one of the most popular reasons why parents enroll their children in private
16
schools. On the other hand, public schools are larger institutions and possess the economies of
scale and resources to offer a wider range of extracurricular activities than smaller, standalone
private schools (Fischel, 2009; Powell et al., 1985). Thus, the hypothesis that parents who value
these goods are more likely to send their children to public schools instead of private schools is
consistent with our results. Interestingly, however, a preference for school safety does not appear
to be linked to a parent’s preference for private over public schools. Stewart and Wolf (2014)
propose a Maslowian framework for understanding how parents choose schools and suggest that
school safety is a basic need. If MPCP parents already have that need satisfied, then it should not
influence the type of school they select. Instead, they would move on to select schools based
upon higher-order characteristics such as the availability of extracurricular activities or religious
instruction. Whether this is true can only be ascertained by additional research.
Parents for whom financial considerations are an important factor are less likely to send
their children to secular private schools. Since the MPCP voucher must be accepted as the full
cost of educating the child, we were somewhat surprised that affordability was salient for parents
in our sample. The cost for MPCP parents is essentially zero, regardless of which type of school
they select. If anything, this finding may underscore the power of school brands. Cost-
conscious parents still tended to prefer Catholic schools, which have a reputation for being
affordable (Bryk et al., 1993; Cohen-Zada & Justman, 2005).
Although our initial inquiry into the presence of school brands has confirmed most of our
hypotheses, the findings still raise additional questions. Importantly, the parents’ selection of
schools is consistent with their preferences for various school characteristics. But such results
cannot unequivocally prove that parents use brand identities to choose schools due to limitations
in our data. It is possible that parents selected the current school for their child without using any
17
information communicated by a brand affiliation. At best, we provide descriptive evidence of
the existence of brands by demonstrating that parents choose schools that, according to their
widely recognized brand, possess qualities that those parents desire. That is, the dynamics of the
school choice marketplace in Milwaukee, fit a branding paradigm. Beyond that, additional
research, such as qualitative interviews of parents exercising choice, would be valuable to gain a
finer-grained understanding of how parents use school brands in practice.
These findings also bear upon several issues surrounding school choice policy. For
example, policymakers have proposed that managers of school-choice programs should
systematically collect and disseminating information about schools to help parents make ideal
choices (Whitehurst, 2012; Hastings & Weinstein, 2008). Agencies that provide such
information may help parents (Stewart & Wolf, 2014). Yet the costs and benefits associated with
providing information are unclear. Nor is it clear how the dynamics of school branding will
complement policies for school choice programs to collect and disseminate information. Finally,
school marketplaces and the brands within those marketplaces vary widely across different
locations and contexts. The idiosyncrasies and nuances of school branding are largely
understudied both within the US. Only in Washington DC has a similar study been conducted
(Trivitt & Wolf, 2011). Yet understanding this phenomenon will likely become an increasingly
important issue as private school choice expands to more localities in the United States. We hope
that our work here has provided insight into school branding and the broader issue of how
parents select schools for their children as well as encouraged greater inquiry into these topics as
educational markets continue to evolve.
18
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Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Surveyed Parents
Percent of Parents
Race
American Indian 0.81
Asian or Pacific Islander 1.79
Black 56.26
Hispanic 24.24
White 16.91
Religious Preference
Lutheran 6.92
Catholic 31.16
Other Protestant (non-Lutheran) 51.13
Atheist 6.46
Other Religion 4.33
Highest Level of Education Completed by Respondent
Eighth Grade or Below 8.25
Some High School 13.44
GED 3.46
High School Graduate 25.68
Post High School (Vocational School) 4.10
Some College 31.33
Four-year College Degree 10.73
Post-Graduate Work 3.00
Annual Household Income
Less than $5,000 9.75
$5,001 to $7,500 6.52
$7,501 to 10,000 6.06
$10,001 to 15,000 12.52
$15,001 to 20,000 12.81
$20,001 to 25,000 12.52
$25,001 to 35,000 20.54
$35,001 to 50,000 13.73
$50,001 or more 5.54
24
Table 2. Summary Statistics of School Type
Type of School Percent of Parents
Choosing School Type
Private Schools
Lutheran 19.10
Catholic 43.97
Other Protestant (non-Lutheran) 17.20
Secular 10.79
Jewish or Islamic 4.10
Public Schools 4.85
25
Table 3. Parent Preferences for Various School Characteristics
Percent of Parents Selecting
Not
Important
Somewhat
Important
Important Very
Important
Strong Disciplinary Environment 0.76 2.32 21.15 75.77
Religious Instruction Offered 5.98 8.16 26.62 59.23
Affordability 2.58 7.07 32.39 57.96
Racial Diversity 11.35 8.23 27.20 53.21
Availability and Quality of School
Facilities
0.94 4.61 30.79 63.66
Availability of Special Programs 2.14 7.51 32.32 58.03
Availability of Extra Curricular Activities 2.68 13.57 38.70 45.05
Small Class Sizes 2.87 8.23 30.07 58.83
Safety 0.07 0.54 11.46 87.92
26
Table 4. Estimates of Empirical Model
School Type
Catholic Lutheran
Other
Protestant Secular
Jewish or
Islamic
Importance Ratings
Strong Disciplinary
Environment 0.987 0.929 0.935 0.862 0.980
(0.095) (0.093) (0.090) (0.084) (0.173)
Availability of
Religious Instruction 1.843** 2.343** 1.861** 0.925 2.091**
(0.157) (0.229) (0.161) (0.076) (0.360)
Affordability 1.244* 1.012 1.107 1.020 0.928
(0.111) (0.094) (0.099) (0.095) (0.141)
Racial Diversity 0.753** 0.811* 0.870 0.920 0.569**
(0.074) (0.085) (0.088) (0.097) (0.097)
Availability of Extra
Curricular Activities
0.879 0.829 0.740** 0.989 0.794
(0.088) (0.086) (0.074) (0.107) (0.137)
Small Class Sizes 1.336** 1.251* 1.155 1.484** 1.092
(0.118) (0.118) (0.101) (0.143) (0.184)
School Facilities 0.919 0.944 0.930 0.843 1.043
(0.093) (0.102) (0.097) (0.091) (0.172)
Availability of Special
Programs 0.958 0.967 0.980 1.126 0.993
(0.096) (0.102) (0.099) (0.123) (0.173)
Safety 0.980 1.021 1.183 1.273* 1.015
(0.089) (0.100) (0.114) (0.133) (0.166)
Parent’s Religious Preference
Catholic 6.195** 0.956 0.132** 0.540 0.042**
(2.597) (0.440) (0.074) (0.261) (0.026)
Lutheran 1.163 9.478** 0.646 1.110 0.000
(0.705) (5.517) (0.418) (0.723) (0.000)
Other Protestant 0.993 0.944 1.063 0.755 0.023**
(0.329) (0.322) (0.348) (0.256) (0.011)
Atheist 2.064 1.343 1.324 1.196 0.157**
(0.893) (0.622) (0.574) (0.521) (0.101)
Constant 1.056 0.559 1.242 3.354 0.000
(0.953) (0.588) (1.295) (3.372) (0.000)
Notes: Analysis includes 2,559 observations. Omitted category for school type is public school.
Model also includes controls for parent’s education level, income, and race. Omitted category for
parent’s religious preference predominantly consists of Jewish and Muslim parents. Standard
errors in parenthesis. **p<0.01, *p<0.05.
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