The effect of available transportation on educational choice has only begun to be studied carefully in recent years. Perhaps the earliest analysis came in 2009, when researchers for the Center on Reinventing Public Education surveyed low- and middle-income parents in Denver and Washington, D.C. — two large cities with lots of school choice options. The study noted a key finding:
Parents who were not able to choose the school they preferred due to transportation challenges reported being dissatisfied with the school in which they felt they had to enroll their child. […] These findings suggest that transportation barriers have an impact on the degree of satisfaction with the school choice made by parents.[14]
Parents in these two cities who cited transportation as an important factor in their decision were also less likely to be satisfied where their children ended up in school. For most, the barrier preventing them from accessing a preferred school was related to distance or convenience, though some also were concerned about dangers on the route to and from school. Lower-income families were disproportionately hindered by transportation challenges, suggesting that making transportation more accessible can make school choice programs and options more equitable.[15]
More recent research sheds additional light on the impacts of combining robust systems of educational choice with useful transportation options. For instance, recent research shows that Denver ninth-graders who travel the farthest outside their assigned school zone to exercise choice are more likely to attend schools with fewer discipline issues, more advanced course offerings and better academic outcomes.[16] Similarly, other research finds that New York City elementary students tend to use choice to enroll in better-performing schools, but the effect is significantly greater for students who take the school bus or public transit to attend a school of their choice.[17]
Despite the benefits of attending a higher quality school, traveling a greater distance to reach that school may entail some costs. This is highlighted in two separate studies of cities where students can use public transit at no charge. In Washington, D.C., researchers found that students with longer commutes spent more time absent from school.[18] Similarly, researchers discovered in Baltimore that students who had to commute through more dangerous areas were more likely to be absent than their peers.[19] The study from the nation’s capital further found that a greater distance to travel was associated with more frequent transfers to other schools but had no overall impact on achievement test scores.[20]
In a 2018 Mackinac Center survey, 15% of nearly 950 Michigan parents whose children attended brick-and-mortar charter schools expressed dissatisfaction with their transportation choices. Also, of the more than 200 parents who said their child was not enrolled in their first-choice school, one in six cited "transportation challenges" as the primary reason. Smaller percentages cited transportation as the primary way their charter school could improve or the main reason they were contemplating a switch to a different school.[21]
Less is known about the relevant views of Michigan parents who participate in interdistrict school choice. While districts receiving students through the Schools of Choice program are required to notify parents of their transportation options, they are under no legal obligation to transport children who live outside their boundaries.[22] The precise number of SOC districts that do offer a ride to incoming students is unknown, but likely small.
In 2017, the Mackinac Center surveyed the SOC policies of 168 districts serving 60% of the state's public school students and most of its major population centers. Of the 161 districts that accepted student transfers, only 25 had policies providing some kind of transportation option to nonresident students. Usually, these transportation offerings were limited, such as merely allowing these students to board at an existing stop on the bus route in the receiving school’s district and only offering such options when space was available.[23]