Education for All? A Nationwide Audit Study of Schools of Choice

Peter Bergman, Isaac McFarlin Jr.

NBER Working Paper No. 25396
Issued in December 2018
NBER Program(s):Economics of Education

School choice may allow schools to “cream skim” students perceived as easier to educate. To test this, we sent emails from fictitious parents to 6,452 schools in 29 states and Washington, D.C. The fictitious parent asked whether any student is eligible to apply to the school and how to apply. Each email signaled a randomly assigned attribute of the child. We find that schools are less likely to respond to inquiries from students with poor behavior, low achievement, or a special need. Lower response rates to students with a potentially significant special need are driven by charter schools. Otherwise, these results hold for traditional public schools in areas of school choice and high-value added schools.

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Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w25396