Abstract

School choice offers families an opportunity for children to attend schools other than those they are zoned to by residential location. Most families live beyond walking distance to choice schools, so vehicular transportation is needed to attend. Yet, most choice programs have not been designed with such access in mind, and most school bus programs are designed only for neighborhood schools. Such diminished access for children in households without cars presents an equity issue. This study examines the relationship between household transportation resources—automobiles, transit, and walkability—and the likelihood that children attend a choice school. The research team matches data from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey California Add-On with school characteristics to identify the school each respondent ages 5–17 attends and the school to which school districts zoned them. The team then fit a model that predicts choice of school type: neighborhood zone public, choice public, or private. Controlling for student, household, transportation, neighborhood, and assigned zone school characteristics, a student in a household with at least one vehicle had more than double the predicted probability of attending a choice public school compared with a student in a zero-vehicle household. The difference in predicted probabilities grew for students who were low-income, non-white, or zoned to low-performing schools. Living in neighborhoods with high-quality public transit access or high walkability did not affect the probabilities. These findings underscore the importance of transportation resources in enabling families to send their children to schools that best fit their needs.