San Francisco school board member Rachel Norton blogs about the most recent school board meeting this week, concerning the new SF school choice algorithm, which they are now implementing in house (see this earlier post, and a followup interview).
The latest news sounds good regarding plans for transparency. Norton writes:
"Staff did pledge to make the documentation of the algorithm requirements and process flows public by February; I will continue to push to make the assignment algorithm itself open source."
Showing posts sorted by date for query "school choice" AND SF OR "San Francisco". Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query "school choice" AND SF OR "San Francisco". Sort by relevance Show all posts
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Interview concerning San Francisco school choice
The San Francisco Briefing Room carries an audio interview by Stan Goldberg with Attila Abdulkadiroglu and me (about 30 minutes): Assignment System at Risk.
Here's his blurb: "With the deadline for submitting applications for school assignment in the San Francisco Unified School District rapidly approaching the school district has advised its independent advisors who were scheduled to program the assignment system for free that their services were not needed. Does this action imperil the implementation of the system on time? Has school district transparency moved back to the dark ages? Here’s the story from the design team’s perspective."
(Here are my previous posts on San Francisco school choice.)
Here's his blurb: "With the deadline for submitting applications for school assignment in the San Francisco Unified School District rapidly approaching the school district has advised its independent advisors who were scheduled to program the assignment system for free that their services were not needed. Does this action imperil the implementation of the system on time? Has school district transparency moved back to the dark ages? Here’s the story from the design team’s perspective."
(Here are my previous posts on San Francisco school choice.)
Thursday, September 23, 2010
San Francisco school choice goes in-house
Those of you who have been following school choice developments here know that, for the past year, Atila Abdulkadiroglu, Clayton Featherstone, Muriel Niederle, Parag Pathak and I have been helping the San Francisco Unified School District design a new school choice system, which was adopted by the SF School Board last March.
The original plan was that we would continue to offer our services free of charge to implement the software, and then help monitor the effects of the new choice system.
Last week we heard from SFUSD staff that, because of concerns about sharing confidential data for monitoring the effects of the new system, they have decided to do further development in-house, and so will develop software to implement the new design on their own.
The SFUSD staff have been left with a sufficiently detailed description of the "assignment with transfers" design the Board approved to move ahead with it if they wish. But it will take a good deal of care in implementing the new algorithm in software if its desirable properties--strategic simplicity and non wastefulness--are to be realized. (Both of these features were lacking in the old SFUSD assignment system, the one to be replaced.)
Below are links to some of the key developments before last week.
Here is a post with a link to the video of Muriel Niederle presenting the new design that the Board ultimately voted to adopt: SF School Board Meeting, Feb 17: new choice system.
And here is a link to the slides she presented, giving a description (with examples) of the new choice algorithm: Assignment in the SFUSD, and discussions of the features that make it strategically simple, non wasteful, and flexible.
In March 2010 the San Francisco Board of Education unanimously approved the new system. In their March 2010 press release (now here), the SFUSD reported (emphasis added):
"The choice algorithm was designed with the help of a volunteer team of market design experts who have previously been involved in designing choice algorithms for school choice in Boston and New York City. Volunteers from four prominent universities contributed to the effort, including Clayton Featherstone and Muriel Niederle of Stanford University, Atila Abdulkadiroglu of Duke University, Parag Pathak of MIT, and Alvin Roth of Harvard.
“We are pleased that the district has decided to adopt a choice architecture that makes it safe for parents to concentrate their effort on determining which schools they prefer, with confidence that they won’t hurt their chances by listing their preferences truthfully,” said Niederle and Featherstone, the Stanford research team."
A very simple description of the basic assignment with transfer algorithm is given on page 370 of this paper (where it is called "top trading cycles"). Much of the SFUSD school Board debate has focused on what priorities to implement. What is described on page 370 is a simple version of the underlying choice engine into which the priorities go (with a somewhat different description than in Muriel's slides). The priorities can depend on any characteristics of the students (e.g. previous schools, or siblings, or home zip code) or of the school (e.g. neighborhood or historical student composition). But to keep the process strategically simple--to make it safe for families to rank schools according to their true preferences--the priority of a student at a school cannot depend on how that student ranked that school. (If you happen to be the programmer asked to implement this, drop me a line if you run into trouble:)
Some related developments can be followed on the blog of SF Board of Education member Rachel Norton, including this September 15 post on delay in the implementation of the middle school assignment plan: Recap: Assignment committee recommends delay
General background on the theory and practice of designing school choice algorithms can be found here, and my earlier posts on San Francisco schools are here.
Update, 9/30/10: many comments followed the link to this post at The SF K Files
Update 10/2/10: Rachel Norton, the SF Board member/blogger gets emails asking if the new system will be strategy proof, and she says it will be: Reader mail: questions on student assignment
The original plan was that we would continue to offer our services free of charge to implement the software, and then help monitor the effects of the new choice system.
Last week we heard from SFUSD staff that, because of concerns about sharing confidential data for monitoring the effects of the new system, they have decided to do further development in-house, and so will develop software to implement the new design on their own.
The SFUSD staff have been left with a sufficiently detailed description of the "assignment with transfers" design the Board approved to move ahead with it if they wish. But it will take a good deal of care in implementing the new algorithm in software if its desirable properties--strategic simplicity and non wastefulness--are to be realized. (Both of these features were lacking in the old SFUSD assignment system, the one to be replaced.)
Below are links to some of the key developments before last week.
Here is a post with a link to the video of Muriel Niederle presenting the new design that the Board ultimately voted to adopt: SF School Board Meeting, Feb 17: new choice system.
And here is a link to the slides she presented, giving a description (with examples) of the new choice algorithm: Assignment in the SFUSD, and discussions of the features that make it strategically simple, non wasteful, and flexible.
In March 2010 the San Francisco Board of Education unanimously approved the new system. In their March 2010 press release (now here), the SFUSD reported (emphasis added):
"The choice algorithm was designed with the help of a volunteer team of market design experts who have previously been involved in designing choice algorithms for school choice in Boston and New York City. Volunteers from four prominent universities contributed to the effort, including Clayton Featherstone and Muriel Niederle of Stanford University, Atila Abdulkadiroglu of Duke University, Parag Pathak of MIT, and Alvin Roth of Harvard.
“We are pleased that the district has decided to adopt a choice architecture that makes it safe for parents to concentrate their effort on determining which schools they prefer, with confidence that they won’t hurt their chances by listing their preferences truthfully,” said Niederle and Featherstone, the Stanford research team."
A very simple description of the basic assignment with transfer algorithm is given on page 370 of this paper (where it is called "top trading cycles"). Much of the SFUSD school Board debate has focused on what priorities to implement. What is described on page 370 is a simple version of the underlying choice engine into which the priorities go (with a somewhat different description than in Muriel's slides). The priorities can depend on any characteristics of the students (e.g. previous schools, or siblings, or home zip code) or of the school (e.g. neighborhood or historical student composition). But to keep the process strategically simple--to make it safe for families to rank schools according to their true preferences--the priority of a student at a school cannot depend on how that student ranked that school. (If you happen to be the programmer asked to implement this, drop me a line if you run into trouble:)
Some related developments can be followed on the blog of SF Board of Education member Rachel Norton, including this September 15 post on delay in the implementation of the middle school assignment plan: Recap: Assignment committee recommends delay
General background on the theory and practice of designing school choice algorithms can be found here, and my earlier posts on San Francisco schools are here.
Update, 9/30/10: many comments followed the link to this post at The SF K Files
Update 10/2/10: Rachel Norton, the SF Board member/blogger gets emails asking if the new system will be strategy proof, and she says it will be: Reader mail: questions on student assignment
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
School choice in Darebin City, Victoria, Australia
It sounds like at least one school district in Australia has less bureaucracy than my colleagues and I have encountered in helping American cities reorganize their school assignment systems. Kwanghui Lim at CoRE Economics reports: Game Theory in Action: Sven Feldmann on Kindergarten Matching.
More on school choice here, and here. (And here is a video of Muriel Niederle presenting a new school choice algorithm to the San Francisco school board meeting that gave the go ahead for a redesign there.)
More on school choice here, and here. (And here is a video of Muriel Niederle presenting a new school choice algorithm to the San Francisco school board meeting that gave the go ahead for a redesign there.)
Monday, March 15, 2010
New school choice system in San Francisco
Board Approves New Student Assignment System for San Francisco Schools (now here)
Most of the last minute discussion was about what priorities different kinds of students will have at different kinds of schools. That is something that is likely to be adjusted from year to year. But the nice thing is that the underlying choice architecture will make it safe for parents to state their true preferences however the priorities are adjusted.
From the press release: "The choice algorithm was designed with the help of a volunteer team of market design experts who have previously been involved in designing choice algorithms for school choice in Boston and New York City. Volunteers from four prominent universities contributed to the effort, including Clayton Featherstone and Muriel Niederle of Stanford University, Atila Abdulkadiroglu of Duke University, Parag Pathak of MIT, and Alvin Roth of Harvard.
“We are pleased that the district has decided to adopt a choice architecture that makes it safe for parents to concentrate their effort on determining which schools they prefer, with confidence that they won’t hurt their chances by listing their preferences truthfully,” said Niederle and Featherstone, the Stanford research team."
Here are Rachel Norton's comments (she's a school board member with a blog), and here's the story from the SF Chronicle. Here are some of my recent posts on school choice; many of the recent ones tell the SF story as it unfolded.
Now, on to implementation.
Most of the last minute discussion was about what priorities different kinds of students will have at different kinds of schools. That is something that is likely to be adjusted from year to year. But the nice thing is that the underlying choice architecture will make it safe for parents to state their true preferences however the priorities are adjusted.
From the press release: "The choice algorithm was designed with the help of a volunteer team of market design experts who have previously been involved in designing choice algorithms for school choice in Boston and New York City. Volunteers from four prominent universities contributed to the effort, including Clayton Featherstone and Muriel Niederle of Stanford University, Atila Abdulkadiroglu of Duke University, Parag Pathak of MIT, and Alvin Roth of Harvard.
“We are pleased that the district has decided to adopt a choice architecture that makes it safe for parents to concentrate their effort on determining which schools they prefer, with confidence that they won’t hurt their chances by listing their preferences truthfully,” said Niederle and Featherstone, the Stanford research team."
Here are Rachel Norton's comments (she's a school board member with a blog), and here's the story from the SF Chronicle. Here are some of my recent posts on school choice; many of the recent ones tell the SF story as it unfolded.
Now, on to implementation.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Choosing schools (in NYC and SF)
I've written elswhere about the school choice process for public schools in San Francisco and for high schools in New York City. But, regardless of whether the process is a good one or not, the problem facing parents who have to decide how much they like each school can be a tough one, especially if there are a lot of schools.
Two articles help you feel the pain:
New Plan on School Selection, but Still Discontent discusses San Francisco, and
It’s a nightmare to apply for high schools in city discusses New York.
Some more background information here.
HT: Parag Pathak
Two articles help you feel the pain:
New Plan on School Selection, but Still Discontent discusses San Francisco, and
It’s a nightmare to apply for high schools in city discusses New York.
Some more background information here.
HT: Parag Pathak
Thursday, February 18, 2010
SF School Board Meeting, Feb 17: new choice system
At the latest public meeting of the San Francisco Board of Education (last night, Wednesday, Feb. 17), the commissioners and the public were engaged in a detailed discussion of the algorithms and priorities being proposed for the new school choice system.
Muriel Niederle explains and answers questions about the new Assignment with Transfers school choice plans being proposed (with variations for elementary school, middle school, and high schools). She comes on just after minute 36 of this video of the 3 hour meeting, and her presentation, interspersed with questions and answers, continues for a little over an hour (to minute 1:39), although she's back answering questions at the end again. Also presenting the general plan and answering questions is Orla O'Keefe, the SFUSD official leading the effort to design the new school choice system.
There's something very encouraging about seeing the public policy discussion focusing on choice systems that are non-wasteful (Pareto efficient, for you economists), strategically simple for parents (so that truthful preference revelation is a dominant strategy), and flexible (so that the school board can tweak the system in years to come without harming the first two properties). The 'political' issues are the priorities that different children have at different schools.
Another attractive aspect of the proposal (discussed by Ms. O'Keefe following Muriel's presentation) is that data would be collected each year for continual monitoring of how the choice and assignment system is working.
The discussion touches on a number of interesting questions. (Even if the algorithm makes truthful preference revelation the best strategy, there are still issues of checking e.g. addresses in any system in which priorities at schools depend on home address...). But it looks like SF is well launched on adopting a sensible, workable, well thought out and flexible framework.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
School choice in SF moves forward
Yesterday Muriel Niederle and Clayton Featherstone were among the presenters to the San Francisco Board of Education, speaking about possible designs for a new school choice system there. It seems that they are well on the way to a good outcome.
One of the Board members, Rachel Norton, has a blog on which she posted before and after accounts of the meeting:
Tonight’s student assignment meeting should be interesting!
Recap: Closing in on a student assignment policy
Here is a video of the whole meeting (but you can navigate a bit so you don't have to watch the full 3 hours: Muriel's testimony, from her slide presentation through answering of questions from the board is from 1:09 to 2:09 on the video).
For the technically inclined, papers about our prior work on school choice systems in NYC and Boston are here.
It has been mentioned in the SF discussions that our team of market designers has worked on a number of problems aside from school choice, so here are background links on some of them for SF readers who are interested:
National Resident Matching Program and related medical labor markets
Gastroenterologists, Orthopaedic surgeons
Kidney Exchange
AEA market for new economists
One of the Board members, Rachel Norton, has a blog on which she posted before and after accounts of the meeting:
Tonight’s student assignment meeting should be interesting!
Recap: Closing in on a student assignment policy
Here is a video of the whole meeting (but you can navigate a bit so you don't have to watch the full 3 hours: Muriel's testimony, from her slide presentation through answering of questions from the board is from 1:09 to 2:09 on the video).
For the technically inclined, papers about our prior work on school choice systems in NYC and Boston are here.
It has been mentioned in the SF discussions that our team of market designers has worked on a number of problems aside from school choice, so here are background links on some of them for SF readers who are interested:
National Resident Matching Program and related medical labor markets
Gastroenterologists, Orthopaedic surgeons
Kidney Exchange
AEA market for new economists
Friday, December 4, 2009
School choice in San Francisco, Chicago, and Cambridge MA
Changes in school assignment procedures are being discussed in San Francisco, Chicago, and even Cambridge, MA.
In San Francisco, the redesign is well under way, and the school board has a link to the redesign process: What Have We Done So Far.
An impresssive parent-organized blog outlines the San Francisco Student Assignment system, and the current process intended to reform it, initiated by the San Francisco Unified School District. One of the early posts assembles some of the relevant materials, including the SFUSD page about the Student Assignment Redesign (including some history and legal context), and the
SFUSD technical description of the current Student Assignment Process (which can now be found here).
Chicago has begun to rethink its school choice system; see New Proposed Admission Policy Information
In Cambridge, Parag Pathak proposed that a strategy-proof mechanism replace the old Boston-style mechanism (no longer used in Boston); see School Assigning Process Criticized--MIT professor presents a possible solution to the problem
In San Francisco, the redesign is well under way, and the school board has a link to the redesign process: What Have We Done So Far.
An impresssive parent-organized blog outlines the San Francisco Student Assignment system, and the current process intended to reform it, initiated by the San Francisco Unified School District. One of the early posts assembles some of the relevant materials, including the SFUSD page about the Student Assignment Redesign (including some history and legal context), and the
SFUSD technical description of the current Student Assignment Process (which can now be found here).
Chicago has begun to rethink its school choice system; see New Proposed Admission Policy Information
In Cambridge, Parag Pathak proposed that a strategy-proof mechanism replace the old Boston-style mechanism (no longer used in Boston); see School Assigning Process Criticized--MIT professor presents a possible solution to the problem
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