IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jas/jasssj/2015-47-3.html

Interpreting School Choice Treatment Effects: Results and Implications from Computational Experiments

Author

Abstract

Providing parents and students a choice to attend schools other than their assigned neighborhood school has been a leading theme in recent education reform. To evaluate the effects of such choice-based programs, researchers have taken advantage of the randomization that occurs in student assignment lotteries put in place to deal with oversubscription to popular schools and pilot programs. In this study, I used an agent-based model of the transition to school choice as platform for examining the sensitivity of school choice treatment effects from lottery-based studies to differences in student preferences and program participation rates across hypothetical study populations. I found that districts with higher participation rates had lower treatment effects, even when there were no differences in the distributions of school quality and student preferences between districts. This is because capacity constraints increasingly limited the amount of students who are able to attend the highest quality schools, causing the magnitude of the treatment effect to fall. I discuss the implications of this finding for interpreting the results of lottery-based studies involving choice schools.

Suggested Citation

  • Spiro Maroulis, 2016. "Interpreting School Choice Treatment Effects: Results and Implications from Computational Experiments," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 19(1), pages 1-7.
    • Handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2015-47-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jasss.org/19/1/7/7.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caroline M. Hoxby, 2003. "The Economics of School Choice," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number hox03-1, January-J.
    2. Julie Berry Cullen & Brian A Jacob & Steven Levitt, 2006. "The Effect of School Choice on Participants: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1191-1230, September.
    3. Philip Gleason & Melissa Clark & Christina Clark Tuttle & Emily Dwoyer, "undated". "The Evaluation of Charter School Impacts," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 3066da11915a4b04a77b38848, Mathematica Policy Research.
    4. repec:mpr:mprres:7293 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:mpr:mprres:6720 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Caroline Minter Hoxby, 2003. "School Choice and School Productivity. Could School Choice Be a Tide that Lifts All Boats?," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of School Choice, pages 287-342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Philip Gleason & Melissa Clark & Christina Clark Tuttle & Emily Dwoyer, 2010. "The Evaluation of Charter School Impacts (Presentation)," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 770e250b2ef343a3b1ec8c932, Mathematica Policy Research.
    8. Ron W Zimmer & Eugenia F Toma, 2000. "Peer effects in private and public schools across countries," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(1), pages 75-92.
    9. repec:mpr:mprres:6676 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Vittoria Colizza & Alain Barrat & Marc Barthelemy & Alain-Jacques Valleron & Alessandro Vespignani, 2007. "Modeling the Worldwide Spread of Pandemic Influenza: Baseline Case and Containment Interventions," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(1), pages 1-16, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bailey Borman & Medha Dalal & Christopher S. Hayter & Spiro Maroulis, 2024. "A transversal reconceptualization of entrepreneurship education: applying insights from the lean social launch framework to the entrepreneurial university," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 549-573, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sorensen, Lucy C. & Holt, Stephen B., 2021. "Sorting it Out: The Effects of Charter Expansion on Teacher and Student Composition at Traditional Public Schools," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2016. "The Production of Human Capital in Developed Countries: Evidence from 196 Randomized Field Experiments," NBER Working Papers 22130, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Güell, Maia & Calsamiglia, Caterina, 2014. "The Illusion of School Choice: Empirical Evidence from Barcelona," CEPR Discussion Papers 10011, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Bernardo Lara & Alejandra Mizala & Andrea Repetto, 2009. "The Effectiveness of Private Voucher Education: Evidence from Structural School Switches," Documentos de Trabajo 263, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
    5. Atila Abdulkadiroğlu & Joshua Angrist & Parag Pathak, 2014. "The Elite Illusion: Achievement Effects at Boston and New York Exam Schools," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(1), pages 137-196, January.
    6. Cook, Jason B., 2018. "The effect of charter competition on unionized district revenues and resource allocation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 48-62.
    7. López-Torres, Laura & Nicolini, Rosella & Prior, Diego, 2017. "Does strategic interaction affect demand for school places? A conditional efficiency approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 89-103.
    8. Caterina Calsamiglia & Chao Fu & Maia Güell, 2014. "Structural Estimation of a Model of School Choices: the Boston Mechanism vs. Its Alternatives," Working Papers 2014-21, FEDEA.
    9. Susan Dynarski & Daniel Hubbard & Brian Jacob & Silvia Robles, 2018. "Estimating the Effects of a Large For-Profit Charter School Operator," NBER Working Papers 24428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Pierre Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan, 2022. "Why Subsidize Independent Schools? Estimating the Effect of a Unique Canadian Schooling Model on Educational Attainment," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-22, February.
    11. Eyles, Andrew & Machin, Stephen & McNally, Sandra, 2017. "Unexpected school reform: Academisation of primary schools in England," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 108-121.
    12. Helen Simpson, 2009. "Productivity In Public Services," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 250-276, April.
    13. Matthew Kasman & Susanna Loeb, 2013. "Principals' Perceptions of Competition for Students in Milwaukee Schools," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(1), pages 43-73, January.
    14. Hsieh, Chang-Tai & Urquiola, Miguel, 2006. "The effects of generalized school choice on achievement and stratification: Evidence from Chile's voucher program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1477-1503, September.
    15. Gibbons, Stephen & Silva, Olmo, 2008. "Urban density and pupil attainment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 631-650, March.
    16. Carlson, Deven & Lavertu, Stéphane, 2016. "Charter school closure and student achievement: Evidence from Ohio," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 31-48.
    17. Joshua M. Cowen & Marcus A. Winters, 2013. "Do Charters Retain Teachers Differently? Evidence from Elementary Schools in Florida," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(1), pages 14-42, January.
    18. Rita Santos & Hugh Gravelle & Carol Propper, 2013. "Does quality affect patients’ choice of doctor? Evidence from the UK," Working Papers 088cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    19. Verena Wondratschek & Karin Edmark & Markus Frolich, 2013. "The Short- and Long-term Effects of School Choice on Student Outcomes - Evidence from a School Choice Reform in Sweden," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 111-112, pages 71-101.
    20. Christina Clark Tuttle & Philip Gleason & Virginia Knechtel & Ira Nichols-Barrer & Kevin Booker & Gregory Chojnacki & Thomas Coen & Lisbeth Goble, "undated". "Understanding the Effect of KIPP as it Scales: Volume I, Impacts on Achievement and Other Outcomes," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 7d8e94c5e77a4a9c8bf09000d, Mathematica Policy Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jas:jasssj:2015-47-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Francesco Renzini (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.