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| Clayton Featherstone |
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| Eduardo Azevedo |
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| Jacob Leshno |
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Lectures on market design by Clayton Featherstone, Eduardo Azevedo, and Jacob Leshno
Good market designers aren't necessarily good teachers, but three recent lectures in our market design class (two of them yesterday) revealed that some of them are great. Here are three who you could get to teach your students next year:
Friday, December 2, 2011
Seattle backs away from transparent (strategy-proof) school choice
It appears that, after a decade of using a school choice system based at least in part on a deferred acceptance algorithm, in the course of making some other changes, Seattle schools may have backed into using a non-strategy-proof immediate acceptance algorithm instead.
Here's a Q&A on How to Rank Schools for the Seattle Public Schools Choice Process for 2010-2011
"My true first choice option school is very popular and hard to get in to. If I list it first on my School Choice form, am I throwing away my chances of getting in?
"For the 2010-2011 school year, you would not be throwing away your chances.
"This year the district is using what it refers to it as the Barnhart/Waldman processing algorithm, named after the school board members who suggested it. It is more properly called the Gale/Shapley “Stable Marriage” algorithm. This algorithm is well studied and understood by computer scientists and mathematicians. It has been specially designed so that there is never an advantage to listing your school choices in any order other than your true preference. The Gale-Shapley paper referenced below is highly recommended. It is well written and does not require special software or mathematics skills to understand. In addition to being used for school assignments in many districts, a variation of this algorithm is used for the yearly matching of graduating medical students to residency programs.
"Note that this will change when the NSAP is complete. The final plan calls for using a simpler algorithm in which families who list a school as their first choice have priority over families who list the school second choice or later. This can result in cases where your best chance for getting into one of your choices is to “lie” and list your second choice first."
********
And here's an analysis by a concerned parent, Chris MacGregor, who happens to be a software engineer and took the trouble to examine the school district's school choice algorithm source code: Serious Problem With New Student Assignment Plan
********
It sounds like the plan may have been passed hastily, with the change in algorithm being a detail in a more politically charged discussion: Student-assignment plan passed behind closed doors.
********
Here's some background on school choice in Seattle, in the form of court documents from 2001, about the use of race as a tie-breaker in school assignment.
********
Here's a 1998 story about the adoption of the deferred acceptance algorithm, with some discussion touching on strategy-proofness and making it safe to submit true preferences: New Student-Assignment Plan Set
"The change, devised by board members Scott Barnhart and Nancy Waldman, will extend the district's "hold harmless" rule to all choices. Currently, when students apply to alternative schools, they don't lose their place in line for a regular school.
Note that Scott Barnhart is a medical prof at U. of Washington, who was matched to a number of residency positions, and so would have been familiar with the medical match.
*********
And here's a 1996 story (short on detail, but gives some of the political atmosphere) about the run-up to the adoption of the deferred acceptance algorithm that is apparently on its way out: Vote On Reform Plan -- School Board To Tackle Student-Assignment System
*******
For those of you new to discussions of making school choice simple and safe for parents to reveal their preferences over schools, see the papers here about New York and Boston, and see the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice which has more recently been involved in the design of school choice programs in Washington D.C., Denver, and New Orleans.
HT: Parag Pathak
Here's a Q&A on How to Rank Schools for the Seattle Public Schools Choice Process for 2010-2011
"My true first choice option school is very popular and hard to get in to. If I list it first on my School Choice form, am I throwing away my chances of getting in?
"For the 2010-2011 school year, you would not be throwing away your chances.
"This year the district is using what it refers to it as the Barnhart/Waldman processing algorithm, named after the school board members who suggested it. It is more properly called the Gale/Shapley “Stable Marriage” algorithm. This algorithm is well studied and understood by computer scientists and mathematicians. It has been specially designed so that there is never an advantage to listing your school choices in any order other than your true preference. The Gale-Shapley paper referenced below is highly recommended. It is well written and does not require special software or mathematics skills to understand. In addition to being used for school assignments in many districts, a variation of this algorithm is used for the yearly matching of graduating medical students to residency programs.
"Note that this will change when the NSAP is complete. The final plan calls for using a simpler algorithm in which families who list a school as their first choice have priority over families who list the school second choice or later. This can result in cases where your best chance for getting into one of your choices is to “lie” and list your second choice first."
********
And here's an analysis by a concerned parent, Chris MacGregor, who happens to be a software engineer and took the trouble to examine the school district's school choice algorithm source code: Serious Problem With New Student Assignment Plan
********
It sounds like the plan may have been passed hastily, with the change in algorithm being a detail in a more politically charged discussion: Student-assignment plan passed behind closed doors.
********
Here's some background on school choice in Seattle, in the form of court documents from 2001, about the use of race as a tie-breaker in school assignment.
********
Here's a 1998 story about the adoption of the deferred acceptance algorithm, with some discussion touching on strategy-proofness and making it safe to submit true preferences: New Student-Assignment Plan Set
"The change, devised by board members Scott Barnhart and Nancy Waldman, will extend the district's "hold harmless" rule to all choices. Currently, when students apply to alternative schools, they don't lose their place in line for a regular school.
But, when students apply to popular regular schools and don't get in, the computer bumps them down the list until it finds a school with a vacancy - even though they may have siblings in their second-choice school or may live right across the street.
Barnhart and Waldman's system will ensure that more students get their real second choice and eliminate bumping down to lower and lower choices, which has discouraged parents and driven some to send their children to private schools, according to Waldman.
At last night's meeting, Waldman said that had happened to her.
Space wasn't available at her first-choice kindergarten, so her daughter was assigned to a school Waldman hadn't even listed. So, Waldman put her daughter in private school for three years."
******Note that Scott Barnhart is a medical prof at U. of Washington, who was matched to a number of residency positions, and so would have been familiar with the medical match.
*********
And here's a 1996 story (short on detail, but gives some of the political atmosphere) about the run-up to the adoption of the deferred acceptance algorithm that is apparently on its way out: Vote On Reform Plan -- School Board To Tackle Student-Assignment System
*******
For those of you new to discussions of making school choice simple and safe for parents to reveal their preferences over schools, see the papers here about New York and Boston, and see the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice which has more recently been involved in the design of school choice programs in Washington D.C., Denver, and New Orleans.
HT: Parag Pathak
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Paying bone marrow donors is now legal (depending on how it's done)
Joshua Gans forwards me this, just in on the AP wire from the Washington Post: Court says some bone marrow donors can be paid, overturning law that made compensation a crime
But the ruling makes for some odd distinctions:
"A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that most bone marrow donors can be paid, overturning a decades-old law that made such compensation a crime.
"In its ruling Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a technological breakthrough makes donating bone marrow a nearly identical process as donating blood plasma. It’s legal — and common — to pay plasma donors. Therefore, the court ruled, bone marrow donors undergoing the new procedure can be paid as well and are exempt from a law making it a felony to sell human organs for transplants.
"The unanimous three-judge panel of the court did say it remains a felony to compensate donors for undergoing the older donation method, which extracts the marrow from the donors’ bones.
"The ruling overturns a lower court decision barring compensation for all bone marrow donations."
****
See my previous post on that lawsuit here.
But the ruling makes for some odd distinctions:
"A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that most bone marrow donors can be paid, overturning a decades-old law that made such compensation a crime.
"In its ruling Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a technological breakthrough makes donating bone marrow a nearly identical process as donating blood plasma. It’s legal — and common — to pay plasma donors. Therefore, the court ruled, bone marrow donors undergoing the new procedure can be paid as well and are exempt from a law making it a felony to sell human organs for transplants.
"The unanimous three-judge panel of the court did say it remains a felony to compensate donors for undergoing the older donation method, which extracts the marrow from the donors’ bones.
"The ruling overturns a lower court decision barring compensation for all bone marrow donations."
****
See my previous post on that lawsuit here.
What does the NSF do? What should it do? Reports from and about the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, and Dec 1 Webinar
What should the National Science Foundation division of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences be doing? They asked and we answered, and now they're having a webinar to report the results: here's the email announcement.
Date: December 1 at 11 a.m.
*********
Earlier, in a statement to Congress, Dr. Gutmann highlighted some of the tangible benefits derived from market design work that the NSF has supported:
"3.1 SBE research has resulted in measurable gains for the U.S. taxpayer
*****************
Here's an earlier post on congressional testimony:
Dear Colleague:
Just a year ago, we stopped accepting SBE 2020 white papers. The papers were released to the public in February and now we have completed a report, Rebuilding the Mosaic, which briefly describes the process, some of the themes we identified, and the programmatic implications of what we learned. The report is available at: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/sbe_2020/index.cfm, and we expect to host a webinar/town hall on December 1. The login details are below.
All of your papers contributed to our thinking about the future of research in the SBE sciences, and we continue to be amazed at and grateful for your participation. I hope that you will take a moment to read the report – all of the papers are listed in Appendix 5. For the foreseeable future, we also expect to maintain the website (http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/sbe_2020/index.cfm), where the papers can be individually found and downloaded, since the report cannot substitute for the many ideas that you have shared with us and with the American people.
Although I have written to you before to express my appreciation, one more time, let me say:
Thank you.
Myron Gutmann
Directorate for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
National Science Foundation
Details for participating in the webcast:
Date: December 1 at 11 a.m.
Webcast Title: Rebuilding the Mosaic: Listening to the Future in the SBE Sciences
Dial-in phone number: 888-469-1936
Verbal Passcode: Mosaic
Webcast URL: http://live.science360.gov/ (will be active on Dec. 1.)
Webcast username: webcast
Webcast password: mosaic (case sensitive)
*********
Earlier, in a statement to Congress, Dr. Gutmann highlighted some of the tangible benefits derived from market design work that the NSF has supported:
"3.1 SBE research has resulted in measurable gains for the U.S. taxpayer
Matching markets and kidney transplants. Researchers in economics at Harvard University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Boston College have applied economic matching theory to develop a system that dramatically improves the ability of doctors to find compatible kidneys for patients on transplant lists. Organ donation is an example of an exchange that relies on mutual convergence of need. In this case, a donor and a recipient. This system allows matches to take place in a string of exchanges, shortening the waiting time and, in the case of organ transplants, potentially saving thousands of lives.10 Similar matching markets exist in other contexts, for example, for assigning doctors to residencies.
Spectrum auctions. Spectrum auctions have generated $54 billion for the U.S. Treasury between 1994 and 2007 and worldwide revenues in excess of $200 billion. Researchers at Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology, supported by grants from SBE, developed the simultaneous ascending auction mechanism as a technique for auctioning off multiple goods whose values are not fixed but depend on each other. The mechanism was then tested experimentally and further refined before being implemented by the Federal Communications Commission. In this auction, all of the goods are on the selling block at the same time, and open for bids by any bidder. By giving bidders real-time information on the tentative price at each bid stage, bidders can develop a sense for where prices are likely to head and adjust their bids to get the package of goods they want. This process enables "price discovery," helping bidders to determine the values of all possible packages of goods. These auctions not only raise money, but ensure efficient allocation of spectra so that the winners of the auction are indeed the individuals who value the spectra the most. Applied with great benefit for the U.S. taxpayer in the FCC spectrum auctions, this method has also been extended to the sale of divisible goods in electricity, gas, and environmental markets.11"
Here's an earlier post on congressional testimony:
NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences--attack and defense
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
School Choice and Education Reform at Brookings
The Brookings Institute hosts a session on School Choice and Education Reform, featuring Joel Klein, who was chancellor of New York City schools when the high school choice plan there was revamped.
And it's conclusion (drumroll....) is
"The high score overall goes to New York City, with Chicago in second place.
Both received letter grades of B. The low score goes to Orange County, Florida,
which received a grade of D. New York performed particularly well in its
assignment mechanism, its provision of relevant performance data, and its
policies and practices for restructuring or closing unpopular schools. Chicago, in
contrast to New York, has more alternative schools, a greater proportion of
school funding that is student-based, and superior web-based information and
displays to support school choice. If the best characteristics of Chicago were
transferred to New York and vice versa, both would receive letter grades of A."
"Large numbers of parents choose where their children are educated by moving to a school district or neighborhood that gives them access to good public schools, but school selection through residential choice is not an option for parents who are poor or unable to relocate. These parents are forced to take whatever is available to them through their local school district, and the schools that serve them do not have to worry about competition. While some districts are satisfied with this status quo, others have embraced policies that make school choice widely available and expose schools to the consequences of their popularity.
"On November 30, the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings will host a discussion exploring the critical role of school choice in the future of education reform. Senior Fellow and Brown Center Director Russ Whitehurst will preview the Education Choice and Competition Index – an interactive web application that will score large school districts based on thirteen categories of policy and practice – and announce the Index’s initial rankings of the 25 largest school districts in America.
"Following his remarks, Joel Klein, the executive vice president of News Corporation and the former New York City Schools chancellor, will deliver a keynote address offering his reflections on the successes and challenges surrounding the expansion of public school choice in New York City"
***********
The Brookings Institute has also published a companion website and report: The Education Choice and Competition Index: Background and Results 2011. The report contains a ranking of school choice plans around the country.
One of the criteria is the "Assignment Mechanism
The report is here: The Education Choice and Competition Index: Background and Results 2011.***********
The Brookings Institute has also published a companion website and report: The Education Choice and Competition Index: Background and Results 2011. The report contains a ranking of school choice plans around the country.
One of the criteria is the "Assignment Mechanism
Our framework places considerable emphasis on the processes by which students are assigned to schools, treating it as a major category for evaluating choice and competition. The antithesis of choice is an assignment mechanism based on residence, with little or no chance of parents being able to enroll their child in a school other than the one in their neighborhood. In contrast, the paragon of assignment systems is one in which students are assigned to schools through an application process in which parents express their preferences and those preferences are maximized. We score districts based on where they stand with respect to these two poles. "
And it's conclusion (drumroll....) is
"The high score overall goes to New York City, with Chicago in second place.
Both received letter grades of B. The low score goes to Orange County, Florida,
which received a grade of D. New York performed particularly well in its
assignment mechanism, its provision of relevant performance data, and its
policies and practices for restructuring or closing unpopular schools. Chicago, in
contrast to New York, has more alternative schools, a greater proportion of
school funding that is student-based, and superior web-based information and
displays to support school choice. If the best characteristics of Chicago were
transferred to New York and vice versa, both would receive letter grades of A."
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Early admissions and early decision
A number of stories follow this year's trends in early admissions (with Harvard back in the early game).
Early applications on rise at colleges
"High school seniors hoping for an advance nod from Harvard University have swamped it with an unusually large group of early applications that represent the most economically and ethnically diverse set of students in the school’s history.
"Harvard canceled its early action program in 2006 because of worries that privileged applicants were getting an edge and holding back attempts to recruit a more diverse student population, a fear backed up by studies showing that early deadlines tend to draw a whiter, richer applicant pool than conventional winter and spring cutoff dates do.
"But the school reinstated the program this year and announced yesterday that it drew 4,245 applicants, an increase from the 4,010 who applied in 2006. Almost 72 percent of this year’s applicants need financial aid, and numbers of African-American, Latino, and Native American students are all up."
*************
see also
The Flock of Early Birds Keeps Growing
"In the end, the story of early-action in 2011 is not really about what happens at the most-selective colleges (they will be just fine, by any measure). The story’s really about how, in the wild ecosystem of enrollment, one institution’s actions and policies will affect another—and what that will mean for individual students down the line.
"At Georgetown, Mr. Deacon suspects that Harvard and Princeton siphoned many early applicants out of his institution’s pool this year. So he expects that Georgetown’s yield for early-action applications, which dropped from 60 percent to 46 percent back in 2007, will go back up to where it used to be, which would be good news for the university."
**********
Harvard College Receives 4,245 Early Applications
"“Early admission programs tend to advantage the advantaged,” then-Interim University President Derek C. Bok said in a statement in 2006. “Students from more sophisticated backgrounds and affluent high schools often apply early to increase their chances of admission, while minority students and students from rural areas, other countries, and high schools with fewer resources miss out.”
This story in the NY Times Choice blog starts with a good table listing schools with binding early decision (including some universities with two rounds of binding early decision), non-binding early action, and restrictive/single-choice early action. (They even have a printer-friendly version of their chart.)
Early applications on rise at colleges
"High school seniors hoping for an advance nod from Harvard University have swamped it with an unusually large group of early applications that represent the most economically and ethnically diverse set of students in the school’s history.
"Harvard canceled its early action program in 2006 because of worries that privileged applicants were getting an edge and holding back attempts to recruit a more diverse student population, a fear backed up by studies showing that early deadlines tend to draw a whiter, richer applicant pool than conventional winter and spring cutoff dates do.
"But the school reinstated the program this year and announced yesterday that it drew 4,245 applicants, an increase from the 4,010 who applied in 2006. Almost 72 percent of this year’s applicants need financial aid, and numbers of African-American, Latino, and Native American students are all up."
*************
see also
The Flock of Early Birds Keeps Growing
"In the end, the story of early-action in 2011 is not really about what happens at the most-selective colleges (they will be just fine, by any measure). The story’s really about how, in the wild ecosystem of enrollment, one institution’s actions and policies will affect another—and what that will mean for individual students down the line.
"At Georgetown, Mr. Deacon suspects that Harvard and Princeton siphoned many early applicants out of his institution’s pool this year. So he expects that Georgetown’s yield for early-action applications, which dropped from 60 percent to 46 percent back in 2007, will go back up to where it used to be, which would be good news for the university."
**********
Harvard College Receives 4,245 Early Applications
"“Early admission programs tend to advantage the advantaged,” then-Interim University President Derek C. Bok said in a statement in 2006. “Students from more sophisticated backgrounds and affluent high schools often apply early to increase their chances of admission, while minority students and students from rural areas, other countries, and high schools with fewer resources miss out.”
Harvard and Princeton retreated from that stance earlier this year, with each announcing the return of early admissions within hours of each other. Though Harvard administrators had hoped other colleges and universities would follow suit in eliminating early admission, that trend never materialized.
In the February announcement of early admission's return, Fitzsimmons argued that the circumstances had changed and that a broader group of students sought to apply early."
********This story in the NY Times Choice blog starts with a good table listing schools with binding early decision (including some universities with two rounds of binding early decision), non-binding early action, and restrictive/single-choice early action. (They even have a printer-friendly version of their chart.)
Monday, November 28, 2011
Quick links to economics job market candidates, from the NBER
If you are hiring new Ph.D. economists this year, it's time to begin inviting them to interviews at the ASSA meetings in January. If you haven't started doing your homework yet, this big list of candidates from the NBER might help. It lists Ph.D. Candidates in Economics, in alphabetical order from Alabama (1) to Yale (18) (where the numbers in parenthesis are the number of candidates, by my count).
(Some of the NBER's links seem to be from last year, here's Penn State's list for this year (7).)
Sampling from the NBER's big list yields some big producers of new Ph.D.s (and I have surely missed some). But see the ones below, with ten or more new Ph.D.s on the market.
I wouldn't have guessed this order.
Harvard (31), of whom I'm particularly fond of these 5);
NYU (25);
Northwestern (25);
Cornell (24)
MIT (23);
UCLA (21);
UC Davis (20)
Maryland (20):
OSU (20)
Chicago (19);
Columbia (19);
Wisconsin (19);
LSE (18);
Michigan (18);
Yale (18);
Princeton (16);
Stanford (16);
UCSD (15):
BU (14);
Berkeley (13);
Brown (13)
Duke (12);
Penn (12);
Illinois (10);
Minnesota (10);
Rochester (10):
Cal Tech (9) [I know, 9 isn't double digits...]
(Some of the NBER's links seem to be from last year, here's Penn State's list for this year (7).)
Sampling from the NBER's big list yields some big producers of new Ph.D.s (and I have surely missed some). But see the ones below, with ten or more new Ph.D.s on the market.
I wouldn't have guessed this order.
Harvard (31), of whom I'm particularly fond of these 5);
NYU (25);
Northwestern (25);
Cornell (24)
MIT (23);
UCLA (21);
UC Davis (20)
Maryland (20):
OSU (20)
Chicago (19);
Columbia (19);
Wisconsin (19);
LSE (18);
Michigan (18);
Yale (18);
Princeton (16);
Stanford (16);
UCSD (15):
BU (14);
Berkeley (13);
Brown (13)
Duke (12);
Penn (12);
Illinois (10);
Minnesota (10);
Rochester (10):
Cal Tech (9) [I know, 9 isn't double digits...]
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Matching in Practice conference: 28 November, Budapest
Peter Biro writes:
Hi Al,
the European research network on Matching in Practice will have its third workshop on 28 November, this time in Budapest. You can find the program and other details at
Third Workshop on Matching in Practice
Third Workshop on Matching in Practice
Following the first two workshops in Berlin and Brussels, the Matching in Practice network will meet in our institute on 28 November 2011.
Program
13:30-13:50 László Kóczy and Zsolt Szelíd: Resident matching in Hungary
13:50-14:35 Caterina Calsamiglia and Antonio Miralles: All about priorities: No school choice under the presence of bad schools
Hi Al,
the European research network on Matching in Practice will have its third workshop on 28 November, this time in Budapest. You can find the program and other details at
Third Workshop on Matching in Practice
Third Workshop on Matching in Practice
Organisers Péter Biró (IEHAS), Estelle Cantillon (ULB, Brussels) and Dorothea Kübler (WZB, Berlin)
10:00-10:15 welcome and presentation
10:15-11:00 Tamás Fleiner and Naoyuki Kamiyama: A Matroid Approach to Stable Matchings with Lower Quotas 11:00-11:30 coffee break
11:30-12:15 Sebastian Braun, Nadja Dwenger, Dorothea Kübler and Alexander Westkamp : Implementing quotas in university admissions: An experimental analysis 12:15-13:00 lunch
13:00-13:30 discussion on the network 13:30-13:50 László Kóczy and Zsolt Szelíd: Resident matching in Hungary
13:50-14:35 Caterina Calsamiglia and Antonio Miralles: All about priorities: No school choice under the presence of bad schools
14:35-15:00 coffee break
15:00-15:45 John Kennes, Daniel Monte and Norovsambuu Tumennasan: The Daycare Assignment Problem 15:45-16:15 coffee break
16:15-17:00 Heinrich Nax and Peyton Young: The Evolution of Core Stability in Decentralised Matching Markets
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Gift registries for everything
Are people starting to think what gifts to buy you?
US Airways sends me the following email:
US Airways sends me the following email:
Don’t just wish for the miles you want…Ask for them!
Create your Dividend Miles Gift Registry today.
Dreaming of a trip but don't have enough miles? Create your Dividend Miles Gift Registry so your friends and family can help you. Whether it’s a special event like your honeymoon or birthday, or just the vacation you’ve wanted to take – ask and you shall receive.
Here’s how:
Create your Dividend Miles Gift Registry today.
Dreaming of a trip but don't have enough miles? Create your Dividend Miles Gift Registry so your friends and family can help you. Whether it’s a special event like your honeymoon or birthday, or just the vacation you’ve wanted to take – ask and you shall receive.
Here’s how:
- Create your Gift Registry
- Invite friends and family to gift or share miles
- Track your progress
- Book your award trip!
Miles Gift Registry
Friday, November 25, 2011
Liver transplants for alcoholics?
Here's hoping you didn't drink too much yesterday: Study stirs debate over transplants for alcoholics
"Some gravely ill alcoholics who need a liver transplant shouldn't have to prove they can stay sober for six months to get one, doctors say in a study that could intensify the debate over whether those who destroy their organs by drinking deserve new ones.
"In the small French study, the vast majority of the patients who got a liver without the wait stopped drinking after their surgery and were sober years later. The study involved patients who were suffering from alcohol-related hepatitis so severe that they were unlikely to survive a six-month delay.
"The findings, reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, could boost demand for livers, already in scarce supply, and reopen a bitter dispute over whether alcoholics should even get transplants.
"The controversy peaked in the 1990s when celebrities with drinking problems Larry Hagman, David Crosby and Mickey Mantle got liver transplants. More recently, British soccer star George Best received a new liver in 2002, started drinking again and died three years later.
"Alcohol can cause lethal, liver-destroying diseases such as cirrhosis and hepatitis. Nearly one in five liver transplants in the U.S. go to current or former heavy drinkers. Transplant hospitals commonly require patients waiting for a new liver to give up drinking for six months as a way of assuring doctors they are serious about staying sober after the operation.
"Drinkers severely ill with hepatitis account for a very small share of patients needing transplants. The French study suggests that dropping the six-month rule for these patients would increase demand for livers by only about 3 percent.
"The study's lead author, Dr. Philippe Mathurin of Huriez Hospital in Lille, France, said a strict application of the six-month rule may be unfair to such patients. He said they are just as deserving as other liver patients, many of whom have diseases caused by poor lifestyle choices such as drug use or obesity.
"Mathurin said he favors keeping the rule for other alcoholics with liver disease, noting that some can recover liver function simply by staying sober.
"Dr. Robert S. Brown Jr., transplant director of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, agreed it is time to rethink the six-month rule. "The challenge of this paper is to come up with better ways, both to treat alcoholism as a disease and to predict who will succeed with transplantation," he said.
"Mathurin acknowledged that such a change could put more patients on the waiting list for organs, and said: "It means we have to increase the number of donors."
"Some gravely ill alcoholics who need a liver transplant shouldn't have to prove they can stay sober for six months to get one, doctors say in a study that could intensify the debate over whether those who destroy their organs by drinking deserve new ones.
"In the small French study, the vast majority of the patients who got a liver without the wait stopped drinking after their surgery and were sober years later. The study involved patients who were suffering from alcohol-related hepatitis so severe that they were unlikely to survive a six-month delay.
"The findings, reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, could boost demand for livers, already in scarce supply, and reopen a bitter dispute over whether alcoholics should even get transplants.
"The controversy peaked in the 1990s when celebrities with drinking problems Larry Hagman, David Crosby and Mickey Mantle got liver transplants. More recently, British soccer star George Best received a new liver in 2002, started drinking again and died three years later.
"Alcohol can cause lethal, liver-destroying diseases such as cirrhosis and hepatitis. Nearly one in five liver transplants in the U.S. go to current or former heavy drinkers. Transplant hospitals commonly require patients waiting for a new liver to give up drinking for six months as a way of assuring doctors they are serious about staying sober after the operation.
"Drinkers severely ill with hepatitis account for a very small share of patients needing transplants. The French study suggests that dropping the six-month rule for these patients would increase demand for livers by only about 3 percent.
"The study's lead author, Dr. Philippe Mathurin of Huriez Hospital in Lille, France, said a strict application of the six-month rule may be unfair to such patients. He said they are just as deserving as other liver patients, many of whom have diseases caused by poor lifestyle choices such as drug use or obesity.
"Mathurin said he favors keeping the rule for other alcoholics with liver disease, noting that some can recover liver function simply by staying sober.
"Dr. Robert S. Brown Jr., transplant director of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, agreed it is time to rethink the six-month rule. "The challenge of this paper is to come up with better ways, both to treat alcoholism as a disease and to predict who will succeed with transplantation," he said.
"Mathurin acknowledged that such a change could put more patients on the waiting list for organs, and said: "It means we have to increase the number of donors."
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Raising turkeys for Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving y'all:)
Here's timely advice from North Carolina Cooperative Extension if you're thinking of starting a small turkey operation for next year: Raising Standard Turkeys for the Holiday Market.
The first two points sound like the voice of experience:
"a. Identify processing plant before obtaining poults
...
"b. Identify feed source before obtaining poults"
***********
And here's a report about a somewhat larger operation: In This Town, Turkey Picks Up Bill for Dinner, concluding with this:
"“You look at it every day, and you get to where you don’t really care for turkey,” Mrs. Farmer said. “That’s why I get a ham.”"
Here's timely advice from North Carolina Cooperative Extension if you're thinking of starting a small turkey operation for next year: Raising Standard Turkeys for the Holiday Market.
The first two points sound like the voice of experience:
"a. Identify processing plant before obtaining poults
...
"b. Identify feed source before obtaining poults"
***********
And here's a report about a somewhat larger operation: In This Town, Turkey Picks Up Bill for Dinner, concluding with this:
"“You look at it every day, and you get to where you don’t really care for turkey,” Mrs. Farmer said. “That’s why I get a ham.”"
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
College admissions and searchable data
A slightly breathless but interesting story in The Washington Monthly about college admissions, and how it may be transformed by data mining (and focused on the company Connectedu): "The End of College Admissions As We Know It: Everything you’ve heard about getting in is about to go out the window."
"Because the information that might help them is entombed in file folders, colleges resort to an expensive, inefficient, scattershot strategy. A typical midrange private college looking to enroll 1,200 freshmen might buy a list of 350,000 names from the College Board. An expensive but poorly targeted direct-mail campaign leads to 11,000 applications. They accept 5,000, of whom only 1,200 choose to enroll. Of those, more than half drop out or transfer, leaving the college struggling to bring in enough tuition revenue to pay their bills and left with no option other than buying another 350,000 names.
"Students have a similar problem. It’s hard to choose the right college. Higher education is what economists call an “experiential good,” something you can’t fully understand until after you purchase and experience it. As parents of college age children know, students often assemble a list of prospective schools through a frighteningly arbitrary process of hearsay, peer misinformation, and fleeting impressions gained during slickly produced college tours. Or, worse, they don’t assemble a prospective list at all and default to inexpensive, nearby institutions. Some of those local colleges are terrible places to go to school. (See “College Dropout Factories,” September/October 2010.) Too many students don’t find out until it’s too late.
...
"There are other players in this market, including the Common Application and a company called Naviance, which offers electronic college planning tools for high school students. The virtue of ConnectEDU, though, is that it spans the entire process, from late middle school into college and beyond. The company’s first foray into the market came in 2006, when it signed up three colleges and fifteen high schools. In 2007, it was up to thirty-five high schools and 300 colleges. It began signing up school districts instead of individual schools, then moved to contracts with entire states, starting with Michigan. The number of high schools increased to 700 in 2008, 1,700 in 2009, and 2,500 in 2010. That amounts to about 2.5 million students. The Miami-Dade County school system joined the network last year. The state of Hawaii signed up in May 2011.
"The number of colleges using the service has also increased, to 450, representing a decent—though not quite commanding—subset of the schools that receive large numbers of applications. Yale signed up in 2008."
HT: Stephanie Hurder
"Because the information that might help them is entombed in file folders, colleges resort to an expensive, inefficient, scattershot strategy. A typical midrange private college looking to enroll 1,200 freshmen might buy a list of 350,000 names from the College Board. An expensive but poorly targeted direct-mail campaign leads to 11,000 applications. They accept 5,000, of whom only 1,200 choose to enroll. Of those, more than half drop out or transfer, leaving the college struggling to bring in enough tuition revenue to pay their bills and left with no option other than buying another 350,000 names.
"Students have a similar problem. It’s hard to choose the right college. Higher education is what economists call an “experiential good,” something you can’t fully understand until after you purchase and experience it. As parents of college age children know, students often assemble a list of prospective schools through a frighteningly arbitrary process of hearsay, peer misinformation, and fleeting impressions gained during slickly produced college tours. Or, worse, they don’t assemble a prospective list at all and default to inexpensive, nearby institutions. Some of those local colleges are terrible places to go to school. (See “College Dropout Factories,” September/October 2010.) Too many students don’t find out until it’s too late.
...
"There are other players in this market, including the Common Application and a company called Naviance, which offers electronic college planning tools for high school students. The virtue of ConnectEDU, though, is that it spans the entire process, from late middle school into college and beyond. The company’s first foray into the market came in 2006, when it signed up three colleges and fifteen high schools. In 2007, it was up to thirty-five high schools and 300 colleges. It began signing up school districts instead of individual schools, then moved to contracts with entire states, starting with Michigan. The number of high schools increased to 700 in 2008, 1,700 in 2009, and 2,500 in 2010. That amounts to about 2.5 million students. The Miami-Dade County school system joined the network last year. The state of Hawaii signed up in May 2011.
"The number of colleges using the service has also increased, to 450, representing a decent—though not quite commanding—subset of the schools that receive large numbers of applications. Yale signed up in 2008."
HT: Stephanie Hurder
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Surrogacy as a business
Excerpts from The Red Market: Cash on Delivery
"India legalized surrogacy in 2002 as part of a larger effort to promote medical tourism. Since 1991, when the country’s new procapitalist policies took effect, private money has flowed in and fueled construction of world-class hospitals that cater to foreigners. Surrogacy tourism has grown steadily here as word has gotten out that babies can be incubated at a low price and without government red tape. Patel’s clinic charges between $15,000 and $20,000 for the entire process, from in vitro fertilization to delivery, whereas in the handful of American states that allow paid surrogacy, bringing a child to term can cost between $50,000 and $100,000, and is rarely covered by insurance.
...
"Dependable numbers are hard to come by, but at minimum, Indian surrogacy services now attract hundreds of Western clients each year. Since 2004 Akanksha alone has ushered at least 232 babies into the world through surrogates. By 2008 it had forty-five surrogates on the payroll, and Patel reports that at least three women approach her clinic every day hoping to become one. There are at least another 350 fertility clinics around India, although it’s difficult to say how many offer surrogacy services, since the government doesn’t track the industry. Mumbai’s Hiranandani Hospi- tal, which boasts a sizable surrogacy program of its own, trains outside fertility doctors on how to identify and recruit promising candidates. A page on its website advertises franchising opportunities to entrepreneurial fertility specialists around India who might want to set up surrogacy operations with an endorsement from Mumbai. India’s Council on Medical Research (which plays an FDA-like role—except that it has far less power to actually enforce its edicts) predicts that medical tourism, including surrogacy, could generate $2.3 billion in annual revenue by 2012. “Surrogacy is the new adoption,” says Delhi fertility doctor Anoop Gupta.
"Despite the growth projections, surrogacy is not officially regulated in India. There are no binding legal standards for treatment of surrogates, nor does state or national authority have the power to police the industry. While clinics like Akan- ksha have a financial incentive to ensure the health of the fetus, there is nothing to prevent them from cutting costs by scrimping on surrogate pay and follow-up care, or to ensure they behave responsibly when something goes wrong.
"India legalized surrogacy in 2002 as part of a larger effort to promote medical tourism. Since 1991, when the country’s new procapitalist policies took effect, private money has flowed in and fueled construction of world-class hospitals that cater to foreigners. Surrogacy tourism has grown steadily here as word has gotten out that babies can be incubated at a low price and without government red tape. Patel’s clinic charges between $15,000 and $20,000 for the entire process, from in vitro fertilization to delivery, whereas in the handful of American states that allow paid surrogacy, bringing a child to term can cost between $50,000 and $100,000, and is rarely covered by insurance.
...
"Dependable numbers are hard to come by, but at minimum, Indian surrogacy services now attract hundreds of Western clients each year. Since 2004 Akanksha alone has ushered at least 232 babies into the world through surrogates. By 2008 it had forty-five surrogates on the payroll, and Patel reports that at least three women approach her clinic every day hoping to become one. There are at least another 350 fertility clinics around India, although it’s difficult to say how many offer surrogacy services, since the government doesn’t track the industry. Mumbai’s Hiranandani Hospi- tal, which boasts a sizable surrogacy program of its own, trains outside fertility doctors on how to identify and recruit promising candidates. A page on its website advertises franchising opportunities to entrepreneurial fertility specialists around India who might want to set up surrogacy operations with an endorsement from Mumbai. India’s Council on Medical Research (which plays an FDA-like role—except that it has far less power to actually enforce its edicts) predicts that medical tourism, including surrogacy, could generate $2.3 billion in annual revenue by 2012. “Surrogacy is the new adoption,” says Delhi fertility doctor Anoop Gupta.
"Despite the growth projections, surrogacy is not officially regulated in India. There are no binding legal standards for treatment of surrogates, nor does state or national authority have the power to police the industry. While clinics like Akan- ksha have a financial incentive to ensure the health of the fetus, there is nothing to prevent them from cutting costs by scrimping on surrogate pay and follow-up care, or to ensure they behave responsibly when something goes wrong.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Matching and market design session at SAET in Australia in July
Fuhito Kojima writes:
Call for submissions: I am organizing a session on matching and market design in SAET 2012: http://www.saet.illinois.edu/event-07.html
--
Fuhito Kojima
fuhitokojima1979@gmail.com
Call for submissions: I am organizing a session on matching and market design in SAET 2012: http://www.saet.illinois.edu/event-07.html
which will be held in Queensland, Australia, from June 30th to July 3rd.
Al is scheduled to give a plenary talk (Sir John Hicks Lecture) and Tayfun already offered to come to the session, and it will be an interesting conference for us!
So I would like to encourage your submission:
If you are interested, you please send a message directly to me by December 25th this year with the paper draft (if not yet available, please send me the abstract and/or slide if available).
I will get back to you about the decision by January 15th.
Hope that I can pique your interest!
Thanks for reading this. A happy thanksgiving.
Best,
Fuhito
Fuhito Kojima
fuhitokojima1979@gmail.com
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Schools' choices and school choice in England
In the U.S., charter schools are typically not allowed to be choosy: they often have to offer admission strictly by lottery. In England, there's controversy over religious schools, and the following story illustrates some of the issues.
Catholic school in new row over school admissions
"Coloma Convent Girls' School in Croydon was reported to the official admissions watchdog by the local diocese amid claims its entry rules are “discriminatory”.
Catholic school in new row over school admissions
"Coloma Convent Girls' School in Croydon was reported to the official admissions watchdog by the local diocese amid claims its entry rules are “discriminatory”.
The over-subscribed school – which is rated outstanding by Ofsted and regularly appears towards the top of league tables – gives more “points” to families who take part in parish activities.
But the Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark complained that the system discriminated against single parents who were unable to find the time to take part in parish work.
It also said it was unfair on immigrants who did not share the same “tradition of community service” and struggled to provide written evidence of volunteering because English was not their first language.
The move comes after Diocese of Westminster shopped the hugely popular Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School to the admissions watchdog, complaining that its entry rules were too elitist and effectively penalised the less devout.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
School choice in New Orleans
New Orleans has some ambitious plans for a unified school choice plan in a city whose schools will include many independent charter schools. Here's a ten minute video of an interview with Recovery School District Superintendent John White. Starting at minute 3 it is about school choice.
This is work in which IIPSC, the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice, is lending support in market design and technology.
Here's an earlier story: Recovery School District chief plans central enrollment system, technical training, more
"The head of the state-run Recovery School District, which governs most of the city's public schools, issued a wide-ranging strategic plan Tuesday aimed at tackling the district's most chronic shortcomings.
...
"Most, if not all, of the district's schools will eventually be charters...
"On the central enrollment system ... White provided new details, explaining that parents will be asked to list their top school choices on a common application. The district will be able to weigh factors like a school's distance from a child's home, and assign each student to a building by looking at available seats in both charters and direct-run campuses."
This is work in which IIPSC, the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice, is lending support in market design and technology.
Here's an earlier story: Recovery School District chief plans central enrollment system, technical training, more
"The head of the state-run Recovery School District, which governs most of the city's public schools, issued a wide-ranging strategic plan Tuesday aimed at tackling the district's most chronic shortcomings.
...
"He is promising a central enrollment system by next year, so parents and guardians -- especially those looking to place children midyear -- will be able to ask the district to find them an open spot, rather than having to contact one school after another....
"Most, if not all, of the district's schools will eventually be charters...
"On the central enrollment system ... White provided new details, explaining that parents will be asked to list their top school choices on a common application. The district will be able to weigh factors like a school's distance from a child's home, and assign each student to a building by looking at available seats in both charters and direct-run campuses."
Friday, November 18, 2011
School Choice in Chicago
CPS Application Plan Moves Ahead
"The Chicago Board of Education approved a resolution Wednesday that would require all incoming 9th grade students to apply for entrance into the public school system next year and opens the door to an application process for all grades.
"The Chicago Board of Education approved a resolution Wednesday that would require all incoming 9th grade students to apply for entrance into the public school system next year and opens the door to an application process for all grades.
The resolution authorizes Chicago Public Schools officials to create a single application for the high school admissions process that could be introduced as early as the 2012-2013 school year and to develop a similar application for elementary school admissions.
Currently, students can enroll in their neighborhood school without applying. If they choose to go to a magnet, selective, charter or other school outside the neighborhood they live in, they must fill out separate applications.
It is not known if charter schools would be included on the application. District spokeswoman Marielle Sainvilus said the resolution is the first step in creating a common application and none of the specifics have been decided.
The resolution also calls for the district to contract with the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice, a non-profit school choice consultancy, to develop a “school choice matching system.” District officials did not elaborate on what the system would entail.
The current school application process can be dizzying and has spurred the creation of small consulting businesses to help parents navigate the system.
Jackson Potter, staff coordinator for the Chicago Teachers Union, said Tuesday that the resolution raises questions about how the district will ensure that all students, especially those that are homeless or have unstable situations, are able to enroll in school.
The Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice has worked with other urban districts, such as New York and Boston, to overhaul their admissions processes. In New York, all 8th grade students are required to fill out an application and rank up to 12 schools they would like to attend. The district then sorts them based on their preferences. In Boston, all students submit an application, listing the schools they would like to attend. The district then assigns students based on their choice and a number of other considerations, such as how close they live to a school and if a sibling is already enrolled."
Thursday, November 17, 2011
School Choice in Denver
Denver is implementing a new school choice system. IIPSC, the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice, is helping. Denver Public Schools will be the first large district to unite charter schools and district managed schools under one umbrella of centralized choice.
New, Unified DPS Enrollment Process Backed by Coalition of Education Advocates
DENVER – A coalition of 10 local education advocacy groups announced their support today for Denver Public Schools’ (DPS) new, unified enrollment process, SchoolChoice.
The coalition worked closely with DPS and national enrollment experts to develop SchoolChoice, a unified enrollment process for the 2012-13 school year that is designed to simplify how families enroll students in schools. The group will continue to assist the district with the campaign to notify parents and community leaders as well as the implementation and review of the new process.
“Years ago, families identified significant drawbacks and hurdles to the way DPS enrolled students in schools across the district. Many families were spending days or weeks trying to navigate multiple deadlines and driving across the city to find different forms. And many other families didn’t participate at all. We all came together to find ways that the current process could be simplified and streamlined,” said Amy Slothower, Executive Director, Get Smart Schools.
“We believe the new process will increase access to the district’s highest-performing schools and make enrollment much easier for students, their families and their schools,” Amy continued.
Prior to the introduction of SchoolChoice, charter and magnet schools each conducted their own enrollment. When combined with the district’s own choice process for its traditional neighborhood schools, there were more than 60 different enrollment processes with different forms and due dates for public schools across Denver. The range of due dates, methods and applications made enrollment overwhelming for many parents and made planning for the school year challenging for schools.
SchoolChoice is designed to simplify school enrollment because every transitioning student (incoming K, 6th and 9th grades and any student who wants to choice into a different school) will prioritize their schools of interest on a single form with a single deadline. All transitioning students will then receive a school assignment, based on their preferences, during a single week in March.
Putting into place one process for all district schools and one form per grade will simplify what has been a confusing and often overwhelming system for students and families to navigate.
“We’re excited because SchoolChoice will ensure a fair and equitable enrollment process for all DPS families,” Slothower continued. “With the help of our partners, the district and the Walton Foundation, we’re making it easy to connect students with the schools that best fit their needs.”
SchoolChoice is being funded by a combination of public and private funding in the form of grants and bonds, including a substantial grant from the Walton Foundation.
The full list of coalition members includes:
· Get Smart Schools
· The Walton Family Foundation
· Denver Public Schools
· A Plus Denver
· Colorado League of Charter Schools
· Colorado Succeeds
· Donnell-Kay Foundation
· Metro Organizations for People
· Stand for Children Colorado
· University of Colorado Denver
Update: see also http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2011/11/update-denver-unveils-unified-district-charter-application-process.html
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Congratulations to Muriel Niederle
If that's white smoke coming out of the faculty meeting at the College of Cardinal, it must mean that Muriel Niederle has just been promoted to full professor. An excellent day for market design, experimental economics, and Stanford. (Congratulations to L.E. and N.B. too:)
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Boston school choice: waiting lists
The Boston Globe looks at waiting lists for Boston Public Schools. Some wait lists don't move until after the first week of classes, when the fact that some assigned students have left the school district can be verified.
CLASSES IN SESSION; THOUSANDS IN LIMBO: Parents frustrated as children languish on waiting lists
"School opened with almost 10,000 students - nearly 18 percent of the student body - still on waiting lists, trying to get into different schools than they were assigned. Some, like Mayes’s son, were held up because they came late to the process. Others applied on time but were disappointed by their assignments and hoping for better placements.
CLASSES IN SESSION; THOUSANDS IN LIMBO: Parents frustrated as children languish on waiting lists
"School opened with almost 10,000 students - nearly 18 percent of the student body - still on waiting lists, trying to get into different schools than they were assigned. Some, like Mayes’s son, were held up because they came late to the process. Others applied on time but were disappointed by their assignments and hoping for better placements.
"Most would never get called. Those who did might wait days or weeks for an opening. Some might not be notified of vacancies until November, forcing families to make agonizing decisions about pulling children out of classrooms they have grown used to.
"Boston’s school lottery is a balancing act. Designed to give every family a chance at getting into a high-achieving school, the lottery lets parents request seats in schools outside their neighborhoods. The intent is to spread opportunity in a city with uneven schools and keep options open for parents, but the unintended consequence, too often, is disruption. Since school started in September, about 750 students moved off waiting lists and into different schools, leaving altered class lists and new vacancies to be filled behind them.
"Last-minute changes are inevitable in a city with a highly mobile population, where hundreds of students move during the summer, but Boston’s assignment system adds - and indeed fosters - additional layers of delay and uncertainty.
"Families who were asked to choose a school last winter or spring were never forced to commit to one. Students could show up - or not - in September. If they didn’t, the district left their seats open for eight school days before releasing the spots to wait-listed students, tying up thousands of seats for the first two weeks of school. The number of no-shows, eight days into this school year, was 2,810.
...
"Why does a school district that starts the assignment process so early not finish it before school starts? Administrators say they can’t start assignments until late in the summer because they have to wait for 3,000 students to finish summer school in August to find out who will actually be promoted and who will have to repeat a grade. The school district’s hotline, which fielded 15,000 calls in five weeks, only has a temporary staff of a dozen and only opened in late August.
...
"Why does a school district that starts the assignment process so early not finish it before school starts? Administrators say they can’t start assignments until late in the summer because they have to wait for 3,000 students to finish summer school in August to find out who will actually be promoted and who will have to repeat a grade. The school district’s hotline, which fielded 15,000 calls in five weeks, only has a temporary staff of a dozen and only opened in late August.
“When folks get back from their vacations and hotline staff starts making the phone calls, parents are home, they’ve made decisions, it works,’’ said Jerry Burrell, director of enrollment and planning and support. “Any earlier, it just doesn’t work.’’
*******
Here is the Boston Public Schools student assignment policy for waitlists:
*******
Here is the Boston Public Schools student assignment policy for waitlists:
- BPS will create wait lists for all schools where there are more applicants than available seats for a particular grade.
- A student’s place on the wait list is based on the registration period when the student applied, sibling priority, the school choices selected on the application, and a random number.
- No student will have a lower place on a wait list than any student who applied in a later registration round, regardless of priorities. However, within each period, a student’s place on the wait list can change if his/her priorities change, which may affect the placement of other students on the wait list.
- Families registering for any grade, K0 through 12, may be placed on up to three wait lists. Families who are assigned to their second choice school may be on the wait list for their first choice school. Families assigned to their third choice school may be placed on the wait lists for their first and second choice schools. And families assigned to their fourth choice school or higher, or who are unassigned (kindergarten only) or administratively assigned (see below), may be on wait lists for their top three choices.
- Families may request that a student be added to any wait list (to a school for which they are eligible to apply). However, students may not occupy more than the number of wait lists prescribed above. Students already on the maximum number of wait lists must go off one list in order to be added to another.
- Any student who remains a Boston resident may remain on a wait list after the beginning of the school year, regardless of whether or not the student attends the Boston Public Schools.
- All wait lists expire at the end of the second marking period (January of the following year).
Coming off a wait list
When seats become available, students will be assigned from wait lists in the following order, beginning with students who applied in the earliest rounds:
If the school has not reached its 50% walk zone target, students are assigned from wait lists in this order:
1. Students with sibling + walk zone priority
2. Students with sibling priority
3. Students with walk zone priority
4. Students with no priorities
2. Students with sibling priority
3. Students with walk zone priority
4. Students with no priorities
If the school has reached its 50% walk zone target, students are assigned in this order:
1. Students with sibling priority (no additional priority for walk zone)
2. All other students (no walk zone)
2. All other students (no walk zone)
The random numbers assigned to families during registration will be used as "tiebreakers" among students with the same priorities.
From mid-March through mid-August, as seats become available, children are automatically moved off the wait list into their chosen school. Families receive notification about their new school assignment with a letter sent in a mail.
For kindergarteners after mid-August, if a space becomes available at a school with a wait list, families on the wait lists are contacted in order. Families have 24 hours to decide if they want to attend the school. Families are contacted only at the phone numbers they listed on their registration form. This process continues into the school year through January as seats become available.
For students in grades 1 through 12, if a space becomes available at a school with a wait list, families on the wait list are contacted from mid-August through the end of September. After September, families are only contacted about transferring schools where they are wait-listed after marking periods (mid to late November and late January). Families have 24 hours to decide if they want to attend the school and families are contacted only at the phone numbers they have listed on their registration form.
All lists, regardless of grade, expire at the end of the second marking period (January of the following year)."
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