TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cullen,Julie Berry
AU  - Jacob,Brian A.
AU  - Levitt,Steven
TI  - The Effect of School Choice on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10113
PY  - 2003
Y2  - November 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10113
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10113.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Julie Berry Cullen
Department of Economics - 0508
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0508
Tel: 858/822-2056
Fax: 858/534-7040
E-Mail: jbcullen@ucsd.edu

Brian Jacob
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
University of Michigan
735 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Tel: 734-615-6994
Fax: NA
E-Mail: bajacob@umich.edu

Steven D. Levitt
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL  60637
Tel: 773/834-1862
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: slevitt@midway.uchicago.edu
AB  - School choice has become an increasingly prominent strategy for urban school districts seeking to enhance academic achievement. Evaluating the impact of such programs is complicated by the fact that a highly select sample of students takes advantage of these programs. To overcome this difficulty, we exploit randomized lotteries that determine high school admission in the Chicago Public Schools. Surprisingly, we find little evidence that attending sought after programs provides any benefit on a wide variety of traditional academic measures, including standardized test scores, attendance rates, course-taking, and credit accumulation. This is true despite the fact that those students who win the lotteries attend better high schools along a number of dimensions, including higher peer achievement levels, higher peer graduation rates, and lower levels of poverty. We do, however, uncover evidence that attendance at such schools may improve a subset of non-traditional outcome measures, such as self-reported disciplinary incidences and arrest rates.
ER  -