TY - JOUR AU - Cullen,Julie Berry AU - Jacob,Brian AU - Levitt,Steven TI - The Impact of School Choice on Student Outcomes: An Analysis of the Chicago Public Schools JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 7888 PY - 2000 Y2 - September 2000 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7888 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7888.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 - Current education reform proposals involve improving educational outcomes through forms of market-based competition and expanded parental choice. In this paper, we explore the impact of choice through open enrollment within the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Roughly half of the students within CPS opt out of their assigned high school to attend other neighborhood schools or special career academies and magnet schools. Access to school choice dramatically increases student sorting by ability relative to neighborhood assignment. Students who opt out are more likely to graduate than observationally similar students who remain at their assigned schools. However, with the exception of those attending career academies, the gains appear to be largely spurious driven by the fact that more motivated students are disproportionately likely to opt out. Students with easy geographical access to a range of schools other than career academies (who presumably have a greater degree of school choice) are no more likely to graduate on average than students in more isolated areas. We find no evidence that this finding can be explained by negative spillovers to those who remain that mask gains to those who travel. Open enrollment apparently benefits those students who take advantage of having access to vocational programs without harming those who do not. ER -