Title: To Choose or not to Choose: High School Choice and Graduation in Chicago
Abstract: School choice reforms have been proposed as ways to enhance efficiency, equity, and effectiveness in education. This study examines the consequences of participating in public high school choice in Chicago, a city with a wide variety of choice programs, including career academies, charter schools, magnet schools, and selective test-based college prep high schools. The analysis uses population-level administrative and survey data on all public school eighth graders enrolled in Chicago to estimate the effect of school choice participation on on-time graduation propensity (i.e., in 4 years). Techniques employed to estimate this effect include propensity score, catchment area fixed effects, and multilevel analysis. Results suggest that there is a modest positive graduation benefit from exercising school choice. There are no racial/ethnic differences in the choice benefit, but low-achieving students benefit less from high school choice than high-achieving students. In addition, students in high-poverty neighborhoods gain less from exercising choice than do students in low-poverty neighborhoods. These findings call into question the extent to which school choice enhances equity for low-achieving students and students in high-poverty neighborhoods.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 33
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