Working Paper: NBER ID: w31553
Authors: Christopher Campos; Caitlin Kearns
Abstract: Does a school district that expands school choice provide better outcomes for students than a neighborhood-based assignment system? This paper studies the Zones of Choice (ZOC) program, a school choice initiative of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that created small high school markets in some neighborhoods but left attendance-zone boundaries in place throughout the rest of the district. We study market-level impacts of choice on student achievement and college enrollment using a differences-in-differences design. Student outcomes in ZOC markets increased markedly, narrowing achievement and college enrollment gaps between ZOC neighborhoods and the rest of the district. The effects of ZOC are larger for schools exposed to more competition, supporting the notion that competition is a key channel. Demand estimates suggest families place substantial weight on schools' academic quality, providing schools with competition-induced incentives to improve their effectiveness. The evidence demonstrates that public school choice programs have the potential to improve school quality and reduce neighborhood-based disparities in educational opportunity.
Keywords: school choice; student achievement; educational inequality
JEL Codes: I20; I21; I24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| ZOC program implementation (C87) | student achievement in English Language Arts (ELA) exams (I24) |
| ZOC program implementation (C87) | four-year college enrollment rates (I23) |
| competition among schools within ZOC (L39) | enhanced school quality (I21) |
| parents' preferences for school effectiveness (I21) | school choices (I21) |
| ZOC program implementation (C87) | reductions in neighborhood-based inequality in educational outcomes (I24) |
| enhanced school quality (I21) | competitive effects hypothesis (L13) |