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Evaluating the provision of school performance information for school choice

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  • Allen, Rebecca
  • Burgess, Simon

Abstract

We develop and implement a framework for determining the optimal performance metrics to help parents choose a school. This approach combines the three major critiques of the usefulness of performance tables into a natural metric. We implement this for 500,000 students in England for a range of performance measures. Using performance tables is strongly better than choosing at random: a child who attends the highest ex ante performing school within their choice set will ex post do better than the average outcome in their choice set twice as often as they will do worse.

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  • Allen, Rebecca & Burgess, Simon, 2013. "Evaluating the provision of school performance information for school choice," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 175-190.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:34:y:2013:i:c:p:175-190
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.02.001
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    2. Huang, Bin & He, Xiaoyan & Xu, Lei & Zhu, Yu, 2020. "Elite school designation and housing prices-quasi-experimental evidence from Beijing, China✰," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    3. Jake Anders & Francis Green & Morag Henderson & Golo Henseke, 2020. "Determinants of private school participation: all about the money?," CEPEO Working Paper Series 20-06, UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, revised Feb 2020.
    4. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    5. Annalisa Loviglio, 2023. "School Quality Beyond Test Scores: the Role of Schools in Shaping Educational Outcomes," Working Papers wp1184, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    6. Burgess, Simon, 2016. "Human Capital and Education: The State of the Art in the Economics of Education," IZA Discussion Papers 9885, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Loviglio, Annalisa, 2023. "School Quality beyond Test Scores: The Role of Schools in Shaping Educational Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 16111, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Huang, Bin & He, Xiaoyan & Xu, Lei & Zhu, Yu, 2020. "Elite School Designation and Housing Prices: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Beijing, China," IZA Discussion Papers 12897, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Thomas Wouters & Zoltan Hermann & Carla Haelermans, 2018. "Demand for secondary school characteristics - Evidence from school choice data in Hungary," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 1803, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    10. Tommaso Agasisti & Veronica Minaya, 2018. "Evaluating the Stability of School Performance Estimates for School Choice: Evidence for Italian Primary Schools," Working papers 67, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    11. Masi, Barbara, 2018. "A ticket to ride: The unintended consequences of school transport subsidies," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 100-115.
    12. Ranerup, Agneta & Norén, Lars, 2015. "How are citizens’ public service choices supported in quasi-markets?," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 527-537.
    13. Nunes, Luis C. & Reis, Ana Balcão & Seabra, Carmo, 2015. "The publication of school rankings: A step toward increased accountability?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 15-23.
    14. Marta Cordini & Andrea Parma & Costanzo Ranci, 2019. "‘White flight’ in Milan: School segregation as a result of home-to-school mobility," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(15), pages 3216-3233, November.
    15. Lorien Rice & Mark Henderson & Margaret Hunter, 2017. "Neighborhood Priority or Desegregation Plans? A Spatial Analysis of Voting on San Francisco’s Student Assignment System," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 36(6), pages 805-832, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    School choice; Performance tables;

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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