The Factors Influencing Parental Valuation of Pennsylvania Charter Schools in Grades 3-6

As charter school waitlists around the United States continue to grow, it is important to analyze the factors that are possibly attracting parents away from the traditional public school setting and into the charter school system. Using waitlist data from Pennsylvania to proxy for parental valuation, the article examines numerous factors that could potentially influence a parent's decision to enroll their child in a charter school. The results indicate that parents positively value academic performance, high attendance rates, larger per pupil expenditures, and being directly mentioned in the school's mission statement as being an important part of the education process.