How do government regulations affect private school decisions to participate in choice programs? Experimental evidence from a national sample

School choice legislation continues to expand in the United States. Currently, 35 states plus Washington, D.C., offer some form of a private K-12 choice program, which allows families to receive a taxpayer subsidy to offset the costs of sending their children to a private school or other private education provider. Some have argued for more stringent regulations under these programs to hold private schools accountable to state governments or provide more transparency or safeguards for families. However, others suggest burdensome regulations will restrict the supply of private schools, thus limiting the ability of families and students to access schools that may be higher academic or match quality. We address the question of how regulations affect private schools’ willingness to participate in these programs with an experimental survey. Our survey leverages multiple randomization margins, which allows private school leader respondents to consider multiple program features concurrently to make a participation decision. We find that at baseline with a scholarship value of $6,000, in the absence of any hiring, admissions, or testing requirements, 43-55 percent of private school leaders are willing to participate. However, hiring regulations (8-14 percentage point reduction), admissions regulations (8-12 points), and testing requirements (7-11 points) significantly reduce leaders’ willingness to participate. Scholarship value changes participation 1 percentage point per $1,000, while copay prohibition (requiring schools to accept scholarship amount as full payment of tuition) decreases participation 19-20 percentage points.