Abdulkadiroglu, Angrist and Pathak on exam schools

In Econometrica;

January 2014 - Volume 82 Issue 1 Page 137 - 196

p.137

The Elite Illusion: Achievement Effects at Boston and New York Exam Schools Atila Abdulkadiroğlu Joshua Angrist Parag Pathak Abstract Parents gauge school quality in part by the level of student achievement and a school's racial and socioeconomic mix. The importance of school characteristics in the housing market can be seen in the jump in house prices at school district boundaries where peer characteristics change. The question of whether schools with more attractive peers are really better in a value-added sense remains open, however. This paper uses a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design to evaluate the causal effects of peer characteristics. Our design exploits admissions cutoffs at Boston and New York City's heavily over-subscribed exam schools. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the least selective of these schools move from schools with scores near the bottom of the state SAT score distribution to schools with scores near the median. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the most selective of these schools move from above-average schools to schools with students whose scores fall in the extreme upper tail. Exam school students can also expect to study with fewer nonwhite classmates than unsuccessful applicants. Our estimates suggest that the marked changes in peer characteristics at exam school admissions cutoffs have little causal effect on test scores or college quality.

Update on school choice in Britain

The Telegraph reports, unfavorably, on the rise of school choice (and demise of assignment to local schools) in Britain:
:
Surge in admissions lotteries threatens children's right to place at local school
One in 12 schools is shunning traditional catchment areas in favour of rules designed to engineer a more balanced student body

"Some one in 12 schools is shunning traditional catchment areas in favour of rules designed to engineer a more balanced student body and break the middle-class stranglehold on places.

"The shift is being driven by a rise in the number of academies and free schools whose admissions policies are independent of local council control.
...
"Research by The Sunday Telegraph found that the proportion of highly oversubscribed secondary schools using lotteries or “fair banding” systems rises close to 100 per cent in parts of London. Across England, half of councils confirmed that at least one school in their area now used them.
...
"The Department for Education said admissions were run by individual schools or councils but insisted places “should be allocated in a fair and transparent way”. Parents will find out which state secondary school their children have been allocated on March 3 as part of National Offer Day.
Most schools have traditionally allocated places based on the distance between a pupil’s home and the school gates. This has allowed wealthier parents to buy property close to the best schools to secure places, with research suggesting that living in the catchment area of a highly sought-after school can add an average £31,500 “premium” to house prices.
But admissions guidance introduced by Labour allows institutions to employ a series of measures designed to break the stranglehold.
Lotteries, or “random allocation”, involve some or all applicants having their names drawn from a ballot, giving pupils living several miles away the same chance of a place as those next door.
“Fair banding” sees all applicants sit an aptitude test, with a set number of bright, average and low ability pupils being admitted. Schools usually use distance or a lottery to decide who gets a place within each ability band. Mrs Wallis said many parents “find fair banding complicated”, but insisted it was preferable to straight lotteries because “its goals are clearer”.

"Last week, The Sunday Telegraph obtained data on the admissions policies of more than 1,400 schools – 43 per cent of those nationally. Half of local authorities surveyed said at least one school in their area used lotteries, fair banding or both.
In total, one in 12 of the schools identified employed these admissions policies. Twice as many used fair banding as lotteries"

Brookings Education Choice and Competition Index 2013

The Education Choice and Competition Index Background and Results 2013

Rank Districts by Overall Grade                                                         Rank Districts by Availability of Alternative Schools Score                                                         Rank Districts by Virtual Schools Score                                                         Rank Districts by Popularity of Schools Reflected in Funding Score                                                         Rank Districts by Restructure or Close Undersubscribed Schools Score                                                         Rank Districts by Assignment Mechanism Score                                                         Rank Districts by Application Score                                                         Rank Districts by Comparable Standards and Assessments Score                                                         Rank Districts by Gain Scores Calculated Score                                                         Rank Districts by Accessible On-line Information Score                                                         Rank Districts by Relevant Performance Data Score                                                         Rank Districts by Understandable performance data Score                                                         Rank Districts by Transportation  Score                                                         Rank Districts by District School Quality Score
	Rank	School District	Grade	County	Student Population	No. of Schools
	1	Recovery District	A	Orleans Parish, LA	47,493	126
	2	New York City	A-	New York County, NY	1,150,795	2,431
	3	Orleans Parish	A-	Orleans Parish, LA	51,042	119
	4	Houston	B	Harris County, TX	220,754	471
	5	Denver	B	Denver County, CO	87,147	229
	6	Minneapolis	B	Hennepin County, MN	46,165	122
	7	Washington DC	B-	District Of Columbia, DC	72,875	295
	8	San Diego	B-	San Diego County, CA	146,207	309
	9	Tucson	B-	Pima County, AZ	66,505	215
	9	Chicago	B-	Cook County, IL	427,945	961

...

Executive summary:

"The United States is in the middle of a K-12 education revolution that is characterized by many dramatic transformations — among them, a shift toward more choice by parents in where their children are educated with public funds. This shift is signified by, among other things, the growth of public charter schools, the adoption of open enrollment systems for public schools, the expansion of statewide voucher programs, and continued increases in the availability of technology-based distance/virtual education.

"Although the expansion of choice in education is driven by a widely-recognized market model, which posits that allowing students and their families to choose schools and backpack their public funds will force education service providers to innovate and compete on the quality of their product, there is little available information about the current state of school choice in American education. For that reason, the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings compiles an annual Education Choice and Competition Index (ECCI) of 100+ U.S. school districts. The ECCI is based on scoring rubrics within thirteen categories of policy and practice that are important to the availability and quality of choice and to the competition created by choice among providers of education services.

"Based on these scoring principles, the Recovery School District in New Orleans and New York City Public Schools occupy the highest rankings on the 2013 ECCI, with scores of 83 and 73 points out of 100, respectively. Both districts occupied those same rankings in 2012, illustrating a larger trend uncovered by the ECCI: districts demonstrate little year-to-year change in their commitment to or design of school choice. The correlation between this year’s and last year’s aggregate district scores is 0.95. There are, however, exceptions. Denver dramatically improved its ranking, moving from 24th to fifth place, based on its implementation of a unified application process for all its public schools, including charters.

"Despite their high rankings, the Recovery School District and New York City, along with all other top-scoring districts, need improvements. And, as demonstrated by the 34 districts that received an “F” grade, zip code assignment and other policies antithetical to choice still represent standard operating procedure for many school districts across the country."

School choice in Newark

Innovative Enrollment Initiative Gives Students Real Choice

"If we're serious about reforming public education in our nation, we have to ensure all our kids have access to high-quality schools. Newark, New Jersey, is launching an innovative new universal enrollment program this week aimed at achieving that goal as well as promoting equity and transparency, but federal regulations may stand in the way of full implementation. The federal government needs to loosen the reins and let cities and school districts do what's best for their students.

"Newark's universal enrollment program, part of the district superintendent's One Newark initiative, is representative of a promising trend emerging in a handful of school districts across the United States. Under universal enrollment, parents will simply fill out a single application to rank their top public district or charter school choices. This streamlined process will ease the burden for parents who will no longer need to go door to door to find out the options, timelines and enrollment requirements of their local schools.

"The program, which went live Jan. 6, is a groundbreaking collaboration between the Newark public school district and the city's robust charter school sector. As of now, more than three quarters -- 16 of the city's 21 public charter schools -- are on board to participate. "

School choice and IIPSC in Education Week

Benjamin Herold has a nice article in Education Week on school choice, and IIPSC: Custom Software Helps Cities Manage School Choice

"With fewer available seats in good public schools than families who want them, many cities face a vexing challenge: How do you decide which children go where?

"Enter Neil Dorosin.

"You have to allocate public school seats fairly, transparently, and efficiently, but it turns out that's not so easy to do," said Mr. Dorosin, the executive director of the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice, based in New York City. "We help cities solve that problem."
Over the past decade, Mr. Dorosin and the nonprofit IIPSC have used a combination of economic theory and custom software to help overhaul the school choice and student-assignment systems in New York, Boston, Denver, and New Orleans. That work has converted a tangled web of school applications, deadlines, and admissions preferences into algorithms that generate one best school offer for every student.
...
"While IIPSC's initial efforts included only district-managed schools, the group's focus now is on creating "universal enrollment" programs that bring district and charter schools together in one centralized school assignment system. Proponents say that rationalizing the mechanisms that govern messy school choice marketplaces can help fix a host of problems, including opaque rules that unfairly benefit middle-class families, sometimes-sneaky admissions practices at charter schools, and long student waiting lists that hinder both families' and schools' ability to plan.

"Because the assignment systems generate reams of data on parental demand for different schools and programs, they are also seen as a pillar of the "portfolio" approach to district management, in which families are offered an array of education options that may be expanded or closed based on performance and other factors.
...
"While acknowledging that universal enrollment is not a "silver bullet," Mr. Siedlecki of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation said the data such systems generate can be an invaluable tool in helping school systems "grow their footprint of good schools."

"In New York City, for example, such information has been used to make decisions about which city schools should be replicated or closed—and to create new bilingual and other specialty programs in underserved areas of the city where there is evidence of high demand.

"You get the information you need to change the dynamic," Mr. Siedlecki said."