Abstract
In his classic work on response to failing organizations, Hirschman (1970) argued that more exit options leads to a reduction in the use of voice to address institutional failures. School choice is premised on the idea that more exit options can lead schools to improve themselves for fear of losing market share, but this change could also lead to a reduction in parental involvement in schools if Hirschman (1970) is correct. We examine how competition among schools influences exit and voice in the schools using the variation in choice context across the United States and a nationally representative sample of parents and students. We find that more choices of a particular type of school do lead to an increase in parental exit to that type of school, but that the effect on voice is more complicated. Specifically, more exit options decreases the use of collective voice intended to affect the functioning of the institution as a whole, but not individual voice focused on the education of one’s own child.