Report on Denver School Choice--first year

A Denver organization, A+ Denver,  reports on the first year of Denver's new school choice system, which seems to have gone well.

Evaluation of Denver’s SchoolChoice Process for the 2011-12 School Year
Prepared for the SchoolChoice Transparency Committee at A+ Denver
by Mary Klute, U. of Colorado, Denver

and

Assessment of Assignment Tool
by Dr. Gary Kochenberger, U. of Colorado, Denver

See also Diving deep into SchoolChoice by Robert Reichardt 
"The new choice process consolidated over 60 different processes into one.  A computer program was used to assign students to schools based on student preferences, number of available seats, and school preferences (e.g. siblings, residents, or auditions for Denver School of the Arts). A second round  is open now through August 31, 2012 for students who are not happy with their current assignment or did not enter the first round.

"A Transparency Committee of DPS administrators and principals along with community stakeholders was selected by A+ Denver to receive and interpret an evaluation report on thecomputer program used to make the assignments and a second on the information created by the choice process.  A+ Denver also provides spreadsheets of choice data by school.  

...

"The choice process worked. DPS was able to collect over 20,000 hand-written choice requests and implement a complex computer program to assign students to schools.

"There are huge differences in demand for schools. The differences are largest in high schools: Denver School of Science and Technology, Stapleton, had 8.2 first choice requests per available seat compared to Denver Online High School which had .01 first choice requests per seat.  This is a difference of 82,000%."

Denver school choice is an IIPSC project, see my earlier blog posts.

Denver's new school choice plan: communication is paramount

One of the challenges of introducing a new market design is communicating effectively with participants. Even a strategy-proof system that makes it safe to list your preferences straightforwardly may cause parents to worry whether this is the case. The new school choice system in Denver is dealing with this: Denver Public Schools' new school choice system stressing out some parents

"Denver Public Schools is rolling out a new school-choice process that centralizes school enrollment, and parents are feeling the stress of learning the new ropes.

...
"The process is still not entirely clear to me," said Tracy Edwards- Konkol, a parent of a fifth-grade daughter in the market for a middle school.

...
"Edwards-Konkol has delayed her return of the new four-page application — due Jan. 31 — that requires parents to submit a list of their top five school choices in order of preference.

...
"A line in the application that states that enrolling at a school other than the neighborhood school means forefeiting that guaranteed seat — has some parents thinking twice about choice.


"Fearing that not getting into the first- or second-pick school would place her child at the end of the line to get into their own — likely full — neighborhood school, Edwards-Konkol considered not even applying at Denver School of the Arts, her daughter's first choice.

"When I downloaded the form and saw that line, I panicked," Edwards-Konkol said. "Several parents I've talked to in fact are now looking at this new school in Stapleton because there might be more room at that school. Parents are looking for a safe school."

"But DPS director of choice and enrollment Shannon Fitzgerald said that understanding is incorrect.

"Even if the neighborhood school is not included in the list of top-five choices, if there was no room to enroll the child at the five preferred schools, the child would still have a guaranteed spot at their home school.

"Every student is allowed to hold a spot at one school at any given time," Fitzgerald said.

"It's only when a student is actually placed or enrolled at another school of choice that the neighborhood seat would be offered to a student from outside the neighborhood, she said."

School choice in Detroit?

The Detroit Free Press has a story on the current debate: Common enrollment: Lessons for Detroit

When preparing to move to Washington, D.C., in 2012, Erika and Lamont Harrell spent so much time applying to charter schools that it felt like a full-time job.

They filled out 24 applications — a dozen for each of their two sons — and juggled different school websites and deadlines.

That was before My School DC, a common enrollment and lottery system that has one application and the same deadline schedule for most of the city's publicly funded schools, including charters. A week-long task one year turned into 20 minutes the next.

"The process is just so much easier, and it's less stressful," said Erika Harrell, 33.

More than 200 miles away, in Newark, N.J., the first days of the school year in September were marked by student and parent protests of a similar reform effort called One Newark. Some parents complained that their children were matched to far-away schools that they didn't put on their list.

Common enrollment — in which a computer algorithm tries to match kids to their top-ranked schools — is one of the main reform ideas bubbling out of the discussions around reshaping public education in Detroit.

Changing how kids enroll won't improve academics — a significant issue in a city where more than 80% of ranked schools in Detroit Public Schools are in the bottom quarter statewide. But supporters say it would give all families an equal shot at seats in sought-after schools, bring order to what is now a chaotic enrollment process and stabilize school rosters earlier in the year. The data gleaned from it could inform decisions on which schools should close.

Common enrollment can be tough to sell to parents, at least initially.

The cities that have common enrollment — such as Denver, Newark, New Orleans and Washington — offer lessons for Detroit.

Officials there say they have had significant successes in getting kids matched with their top-choice schools.

But no system is perfect. In Denver, for example, researchers say common enrollment has been stable and successful, but lingering gaps remain in terms of participation by minority, special-ed and low-income students. They also said the city needs more seats in high-performing schools to meet demand.

Improving choice for all students

Common enrollment works best when all or most schools are involved, experts say. The systems have centralized management.

In Denver, where common enrollment launched in 2012, 100% of public schools participate, including charters.

Denver officials say they're happy with how it's working. In the system's first three years, between 76% and 89% of all students were matched with one of their choices, and between 64% and 72% got their first choice school, according to a recent study by the Seattle-based Center on Reinventing Public Education.

"Previously ... we had over 60 application processes and time lines, so only the savviest of parents were able to take advantage of school choice," said Roberta Walker, manager of choice and enrollment for Denver Public Schools.

The school district was an early supporter. A promise of transparency (the system is audited annually) and some pressure from foundations that fund charter schools helped bring charters on board, said Mike Kromrey, executive director of the community group Together Colorado.

Denver Public Schools runs the system, called SchoolChoice.

Getting everybody on board could be stickier in Detroit. The city has a decentralized education system with roughly 100 schools within Detroit Public Schools, 64 charter school districts (made up of 98 schools) and a 15-school reform district for the state's worst schools.

And with a dozen charter authorizers, Detroit has far more than the other cities. In Denver, for example, the public school district is the only charter authorizer.

The charter sector has exploded in Detroit in recent years, leading to fierce competition for students.

"It takes a great deal of trust across schools for everybody to commit to a centralized process," said Betheny Gross, senior analyst for the Center on Reinventing Public Education.

"A charter school is not naturally going to be inclined to hand over their enrollment process. ... Each child comes with a bundle of resources that funds their school."

In New Orleans, the common enrollment system called OneApp brought order and transparency to a chaotic process. But in a city where about 95% of students attend charters, some of the highest-performing schools have opted out.

"If every school isn't going to be in it, it doesn't resolve the problem that it was created to resolve. It doesn't give you access to every school," said Karran Harper Royal, a New Orleans resident and outspoken critic of OneApp.

Supporters say common enrollment has made it hard for schools to "cream" students — using back-door methods to selectively admit children or push others out. A principal couldn't specifically seek out students with good test scores, for example.

"In the absence of any meaningful regulation, this stuff can happen all the time," said Neil Dorosin, executive director of the New York-based Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice. The group helps build common enrollment systems.

In Newark, common enrollment was attacked by some families who complained siblings were split up. Mayor Ras Baraka publicly blasted what he called superintendent Cami Anderson's "secret" algorithm. Anderson has argued that, despite some initial bugs, the system has improved school access.

Newark officials have since added a feature that will allow families to move all of their children to the same school, Dorosin said.

Centralized authority

In cities with common enrollment, one authority oversees the systems.

Whereas the public school system runs common enrollment in Denver, in Washington, D.C., it falls under the deputy mayor for education. New Orleans' system is run by the state reform Recovery School District, with input from the local Orleans Parish School Board. The state-operated Newark Public Schools district handles enrollment there.

The applications that parents fill out are processed by a central clearinghouse.

In contrast, a Detroit parent who wants to sign up their kid for a DPS school today has to make an in-person visit. Three schools require an entrance exam, and one a performing arts audition. About two dozen DPS schools require an application.

The city's charter schools have their own applications, due dates and lotteries.

"There's no coordination now. A kid can get into Cass Tech High School and four different charters. The schools often don't know if they're actually going to get that kid" until well after the school year starts, Dorosin said. "It makes it difficult (for schools) to plan."

Districts don't get the full amount of state funding for students who enroll after the fall count day.

The nonprofit education group Excellent Schools Detroit is pushing for a new commission to oversee school openings and closings, transportation and enrollment across the city. The proposal comes as the Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren is facing a March 31 deadline to come up with proposed school reforms.

...

Implementing full common enrollment in Detroit would likely require legislative changes, experts say. But lawmakers might balk.

"The expansion of school choice and putting parents in the driver's seat has been the general path the government has been on. If recommendations were to come ... that restricted choice and artificially managed or regulated choice, I would ... think that many in the Legislature" would have serious questions, said Gary Naeyaert, executive director of the Great Lakes Education Project, a charter lobbying group.

Naeyaert said he believes "managed and regulated choice is not free and full choice."

School choice in Denver, 2019 report

Here's the latest report from Denver's unified school choice:
Record High Participation In District’s Round 1 of SchoolChoice
Mar. 21, 2019

 

DPS marks eighth year of providing equitable, transparent enrollment through unified system

Denver –Thousands of Denver families took an active role in selecting the best-fit school for their student during another successful SchoolChoice enrollment season. Denver Public Schools (DPS) this week sent out over 27,000 emails and text messages notifying families of their students’ school assignments for 2019-20. Round 2 of SchoolChoice opens on April 3.

The goal of SchoolChoice is to level the playing field by giving all DPS students access to a quality education, regardless of their address or socio-economic background. And SchoolChoice is succeeding. This year, SchoolChoice placed 92% of kindergarteners and 95% of sixth-graders in their first-, second- or third-choice school. Ninth-graders were placed in one of their top three choices 94% of the time. For all three grade levels, match rates for first or second choices were also strong: 89% percent for kindergarten; and 93% for sixth and ninth.

In a continuing effort to provide the best service to Denver families, DPS shifted the timing of the Choice window to close in mid-February, allowing the district to release results nearly a month earlier than in 2018. And the district opened a new walk-in enrollment center in the southwest area to better support families. The DPS SchoolChoice process allows families to rank their top school choices on a single online application. The district then runs a computer algorithm designed to maximize the number of students getting their most-preferred option, subject to availability. The system is based on the 2012-Nobel Prize-winning work of Stanford and Harvard professor Dr. Alvin Roth.

DPS is one of the only large districts in the country in which all its schools, whether traditional, innovation or charter, participate in its choice program. Prior to 2011-12, families had to complete different applications for different schools on different timelines. SchoolChoice is primarily for families with students who will be transitioning into a new school next year, including those entering kindergarten, middle school and high school. The process is also open to families who are not necessarily in a transition year but would like the opportunity to choose a new school for their student.

Because virtually every school is an option in this single enrollment process, DPS provides families with the tools they need to adequately research schools and make informed decisions. These tools include the annual Great Schools Enrollment Guides, School Finder online school search tool, the Great Schools Regional Expo series, and individual school tours.

SchoolChoice is not limited to the Round 1 window that closed Feb. 20. Round 2 of SchoolChoice begins April 3 and will provide opportunities for families who did not participate in Round 1, or who participated in Round 1 but want to re-explore their options or who are new to DPS.

SchoolChoice Data

SchoolChoice participation rates by transition grades:
Kindergarten – 89%
Sixth-grade – 84%
Ninth-grade – 76%
TOTAL – 84%

SchoolChoice Match rates:

Grade	2019: 1stChoice	2018: 1stChoice	Change	2019: 1stor 2nd	2018: 1stor 2nd	Change	2019: 1st-3rd	2018: 1st-3rd	Change
K	81%	80%	1.6%	89%	88%	0.9%	92%	92%	0.5%
6	83%	83%	-0.2%	93%	94%	-2.0%	95%	97%	-2.1%
9	85%	80%	5.0%	93%	93%	0.0%	94%	95%	-0.6%
K,6,9	83%	81%	1.8%	91%	92%	-0.4%	94%	94%	-0.7%

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, 6^th and 9^th 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

School choice in Denver

Denver Public Schools is getting ready to develop a new public school choice plan, with the help of IIPSC (The Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice), the nonprofit founded by Neil Dorosin after he helped implement New York City's high school choice plan. The plan is that Neil will again be assisted by the same team of economists. An innovative element of the plan is that both public and charter schools will participate in the same school choice process.

Here's a story in Colorado Education News, by Charlie Brennan: Streamlined DPS enrollment in works

"Denver Public Schools is planning to streamline its enrollment system and will ask – but not require – all students to choose their schools beginning as soon as fall 2012.

"Under the proposed plan, families for the first time would be able to use one form to apply to traditional DPS schools, magnets or charter schools, and all applications would be on the same deadline.


"Families not wishing to participate would be assigned to their neighborhood school by default, as always. District officials say people exercising choice should find this new system easier to navigate.

"Superintendent Tom Boasberg said the change is really simply one of “mechanics.”

“For those families who do exercise choice, it will be a system that is more equitable, more efficient and more transparent,” Boasberg said.
...
"District officials say the plan’s main purpose is to streamline and unify the district’s current patchwork and often confusing systems of school choice. During the 2010-11 school year, 53 percent of DPS students attended schools outside their assigned attendance area. This includes charter schools.


"Dorosin said he knows no other major urban district that uses one application form for district schools and charter schools.

"The proposal would continue guaranteed enrollment in neighborhood schools as well as priority status for those with siblings already attending a school.

"Board member Mary Seawell has met with Dorosin and said she supports the change, if it will put all district families on a level playing field when choosing schools.

“To me, it is really about, is our system working and is it fair? Is there equity for all kids? And I’ve learned that it isn’t fair, and we need to be fair,” she said.
...
"In the 2004 New York system Dorosin helped design, eighth-graders were asked to rank up to 12 schools in order of preference, while schools ranked applicants without seeing how those students ranked the schools. A computer then compared rankings, using an algorithm originally created to match medical residents with hospitals.


"New York and Boston did not include its charter schools in the choice process as Denver will. New York implemented the plan only for high school students. Denver will do it systemwide, as has Boston. New York did away with wait-lists, Denver will not.

"For 2010-11 in New York, of 78,747 students who applied, the computer placed 83 percent of the students with one of their top five choices. Another 7 percent matched to schools further down their preference lists.

"However, roughly 10 percent of the city’s eighth-graders were matched with none of their listed choices.

“That just means they didn’t get matched in the first round,” said New York City Department of Education spokesman Matt Mittenthal. “We’re currently in a supplementary round, so the process is not by any means over. There’s always a period for appeals but after the supplementary round, they are essentially given one assignment.”

"Mittenthal added there are “hundreds of appeals every year.”

"Dorosin said technical aspects of the Denver program are still under development. Using a formula to match students to schools prevents savvy parents from gaming the system at the expense of less sophisticated families, he said.

"While Dorosin said the New York and Boston models hold lessons for Denver, DPS spokesman Vaughn underscored a fundamental difference in what’s contemplated here.

“We do think it’s good to encourage families to think proactively about their choices, but in no way is any part of this mandatory,” Vaughn said.

Updates on school choice

Some recent articles look at school choice in several American cities, including some (Denver, New Orleans, DC) where IIPSC has helped out, and some that are contemplating a unified school choice system.

Detroit Needs Universal Enrollment for District and Charter Schools, Report Says
"Creating a one-stop shop where Detroit families can enroll in both district and charter schools would help families navigate what has become a very complex school-choice system. That's at the heart of a series of recommendations made in a report commissioned by Excellent Schools Detroit, a nonprofit devoted to improving the city's schools."



How Parents Experience Public School Choice
By Ashley Jochim, Michael DeArmond, Betheny Gross, and Robin Lake

From the executive summary:
"A growing number of cities now provide a range of public school options for families to choose from. Choosing a school can be one of the most stressful decisions parents make on behalf of their child. For all families, but for some more than others, getting access to the right public school will determine their child’s future success. How are parents faring in cities where choice is widely available?
...
"Parents experience school choice differently in different cities. Differences across the cities suggest parents’ perceived challenges and opportunities with choice vary depending on where they live.

"In Denver, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C., parents were more likely than parents in the other cities to say their school systems were getting better. In Philadelphia, only 11 percent of parents reported having a positive outlook about the public education system, compared to 65 percent in D.C.

"However, a generally positive outlook does not necessarily mean that families are satisfied with their public school options. Denver parents were most likely to report having another good public school option available to them, but parents in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and D.C. reported the most challenge finding a school that provided a good fit for their child.
...
"Cities have made uneven investments in the systems that support parent choice. Parents’ experiences with choice are likely shaped by the systems and supports put in place by policymakers, including access to information about schools, the enrollment process, and transportation options.

"Denver, D.C., and New Orleans have made the most progress in investing in these systems. However, we saw little consistent evidence linking specific investments with positive outcomes, which may simply be a reflection of the newness of the investment or may indicate the need for these cities to
go further into developing these supports.

"In Denver, parents who enrolled their child after implementation of the common (sometimes called “unified” or “universal”) enrollment system, which enables parents to apply to all charter and district schools via a single application, were less likely to report struggling with enrollment processes. Yet, in New Orleans, parents were more likely to report problems after the introduction of common enrollment. "

Miscellaneous School choice in the news

Here are some stories that I marked but never got around to blogging about...

Denver:DPS busts parents lying for seats

"DPS officials confirmed this week they’re analyzing address anomalies to root out people misleading the district about their home addresses as a way to ensure placement of their children in coveted schools, such as East High School, the Denver Schools of Science and Technology, and Bromwell, Steck, Stapleton and Cory elementary schools."
***********

New Orleans:
Recovery School District school assignments appealed by about 5 percent of students

"About 5 percent of the 32,000 students assigned to public schools this year through the Recovery School District's new central enrollment system appealed their assignment, district officials said Tuesday. Of those, about 69 percent got into one of their top three choices of school after the district reconsidered their case.

"On the other hand, about 31 percent of the roughly 1,400 students who appealed got matched to a school that they hadn't ranked on their application at all, meaning about 430 families are likely still feeling frustrated.

"We need more good and great schools to give parents more options," Recovery District Superintendent Patrick Dobard said. "That's what we look at these numbers as speaking to."

"This spring marked the first time that the Recovery District has offered one application, known as the OneApp, for a slot at any district school. In the past, each of the city's independent charter schools, which make up most of the district, handled enrollment on their own, presenting parents with a sometimes frustrating search for an open seat. None of the district's schools have traditional neighborhood attendance zones.

"With the OneApp in place this year, the district took in about 25,000 applications. Technically, everyone is required to turn one in, whether they plan on staying at the school they already attend or not. Overall, the district assigned 32,000 students to schools, keeping those who didn't turn one in at their current schools and manually assigning those who didn't turn in an application but were scheduled to finish their school's last available grade -- eighth graders slated to move on to high school, for instance."
**************


Orleans Parish School Board approves resolution moving toward common enrollment

"The city's local school board made a formal commitment Tuesday to work with state officials on a common enrollment process for all of the city's public schools. It's a step that could simplify life for families in a city where parents have both the burden and opportunity of choosing a school on their own, rather than letting geography decide.

"But negotiations between local and state education officials, as well as the independent charter schools that now predominate in New Orleans, may still have far to go before a common enrollment system is in place.

"In a unanimous vote, the Orleans Parish School Board approved a resolution promising to work toward joining the so called OneApp, a central enrollment system deployed for the first time this year by officials at the Recovery School District, the state agency that has governed most of the city's public schools since shortly after Hurricane Katrina.

"Bringing all, or at least the vast majority, of the city's public schools into one enrollment system would mark a significant reversal. In Katrina's wake, the state swept most schools into the Recovery School District and began handing over the reins of individual schools to independent charter operators that handle their own process for enrolling students, drawing applicants from across the city rather than a single neighborhood. The School Board, left with about 17 campuses, is now a majority charter district as well, leaving parents with a patchwork of varying applications and deadlines.

"Responding after years of complaints about the complexities of the new system, the Recovery District put all of its traditional and charter schools into the same enrollment system this year. Experts from Duke, Harvard and MIT, helped engineer a computer-driven matching scheme that assigns students based on their top choices, the school their siblings attend, their proximity to the campus and a randomly assigned lottery number.
The School Board, which governs a district encompassing about a quarter of the city's public school students and all of the city's magnet schools, sat the OneApp's first round out, concerned about ceding further authority to the state without being assured of a fair process.

"Quiet negotiations between the two districts have yielded an apparent compromise. As it's spelled out in the School Board's resolution, the board will be taking over management of the OneApp itself, although when and on what terms isn't clear, leaving room for any potential agreement to fall apart.

"Officials from either district tell slightly different versions of how they see a merger of enrollment systems playing out. In an interview on Tuesday, Recovery District Superintendent Patrick Dobard said he's hoping to incorporate School Board campuses into the OneApp as early as next year -- before the Recovery District would be ready to hand over the keys of that system for the School Board to run. Dobard said any transition toward School Board control of the OneApp would likely be settled with some type of written contract, likely years down the road and as a part of a broader discussion of bringing all of the city's schools back under some type of unified governing body.
"We don't have to be the long-term manager," Dobard said. "But we would likely have to some kind of memorandum of understanding."

"Thomas Robichaux, the School Board's president, however, said Tuesday, "It's our intention to manage it right away, or at the very least to be the joint manager."

"The School Board's 11 independent charter schools -- publicly funded but operating autonomously in a contract with the district -- may present another hurdle. Robichaux has said that the district cannot force those schools into a common enrollment process, so officials will have to negotiate with each of them.

"One other caveat, even if the Recovery District and the School Board succeed in unifying their enrollment, will be the city's so-called Type 2 charters, authorized by the state and operating outside the jurisdiction of either district. Recovery District officials have said they would like to include Type 2s in the OneApp as well, but there has been no public move in that direction.

"Still, Dobard said he's optimistic about getting a deal done, with the School Board at least. Recovery District officials say there are technically problems to overcome. They will need a new computer algorithm to incorporate the selective admissions requirements at some School Board campuses. But none of it is beyond working out. "
*************

Washington D.C.


Create one single lottery for charter and non-charter schools

"The current application process for DC's charter and non-charter public schools is a chaotic mess that confuses parents and hurts education for students. DC could fix many problems by creating a centralized lottery process for all public schools, charter and non-charter.

"Steve Glazerman called for a centralized application for charter schools in 2010. Since then, DC Public Schools (DCPS) instituted a common application for the District's specialized high schools.

This is a great step, but it could go a lot further to include charter schools and traditional neighborhood schools at all grades. It wouldn't be hard; the company that operates whose software enables the centralized application for DCPS application-only high schools is currently implementing a centralized application for charters and non-charters in Denver.
District officials generally agree. Scheherazade Salimi, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Mayor for Education, says that "a common application is something the Deputy Mayor would like to explore in partnership with DCPS and [the Public Charter School Board]."
In a centralized application, parents would select several schools, rank-ordered by preference. They would select charters and non-charters, and could conceivably select up to 12, 15 or 20 schools.
A single lottery would select applicants one by one, and assign each to the first school on his or her list with an open slot. This is similar to how many colleges assign dorm rooms, for instance.
This type of centralized application would have many benefits over the current system.
Parents are more likely to get into their top choice schools.
When parents apply to schools now, they apply for DCPS schools using a centralized application, and apply to each charter school separately. Pre-K programs have lotteries for all children, while students in 1st grade and older enter lotteries only for out-of-boundary DCPS schools.
As a result, one applicant in Capitol Hill could be waitlisted at a nearby charter that was their top choice and accepted into a Columbia Heights charter that was their 2nd choice, while a Columbia Heights family that preferred the nearby charter could be waitlisted there but accepted to the Capitol Hill charter school.
The result is that neither child can go to his or her top choice charter, and both families are making unnecessary drives to get the kids to school.
Spots at competitive schools won't be locked up by parents who don't plan to send kids there.
Schools hold their lotteries in the spring for spots in the fall. In the current system, if a child gets accepted to multiple charter schools and/or an out-of-boundary DCPS school, parents might tell each school that the child will attend in the fall.
When they decide which school to attend, they inform the schools at some point in the summer or they just don't show up for the schools they didn't select. There's no deposit or penalty, so they don't pay a cost for this, but other families lose out who might have taken the slot but had to make a decision earlier to go elsehwere.
Some parents do this to give themselves more time to research the schools; some want to wait until school starts to assess the facilities of charter schools that were still preparing their facilities in the spring.
When a student attending an out-of-boundary DCPS school gets into a different out-of-boundary DCPS school, the principal of the first school "releases" the student before they can secure their spot into the new school. Charter schools have no such process.
Squatting on multiple school slots is unfair to everybody. When children accepted through the lottery don't show up in the fall, principals have to scramble to contact any remaining applicants on their wait list. Squatting also leads to the next problem.
Principals could provide better estimates of enrollment for funding purposes.
One of the most common grievances from charter advocates is that DCPS principals overestimate their enrollment to receive extra funding.
DCPS schools project fall enrollment in the spring and these projections determine funding for the following year. If the actual enrollment is lower, DCPS' budget doesn't shrink. But charter schools receive funding quarterly based on their actual enrollment. If a charter school's enrollment declines, it loses money.
Some principals might be doing this on purpose, but it's also difficult for DCPS principals to accurately estimate enrollment for the following fall when applicants hold a spot at their school while they spend the summer deciding whether to attend charter schools.
A centralized application would eliminate much of this problem. Each school, DCPS and charter, would know that every child on its list isn't going to suddenly go elsewhere in the DC system. They could go to private school or move to another jurisdiction, but that applies to a smaller number of children.
Charter principals wouldn't be able to "skim the cream."
Charter school critics often complain that charter school principals find ways to weed out students during enrollment who may be harder to educate. The lottery initially fills all charter school slots randomly, but as parents of children who got in on the lottery tell the school that they won't be taking the slot, the charter itself contacts applicants off of their wait list.
There are opportunities for principals to intentially or unintentionally abuse this system. For example, principals can give an applicant more or less time to respond and claim the slot before they move on to the next child. They might give more "desirable" children more time than others.
A charter school in New York was put on probation last year for weeding out applicants in the enrollment process. While there hasn't been a specific accusation like this against any DC charter school, a centralized application system could remove this because students would be assigned to a single school.
We would have data on capacity needs at all grades, especially pre-K.
District officials say that DC has achieved universal pre-K, but the city's auditor of pre-K capacity disagrees. Who is right? We won't know until we have data on the actual demand for pre-K.
A centralized application for pre-K, including all of the pre-K programs, would generate this data. It would then be easy to compare the number of total children applying against the number of public pre-K slots.
The data wouldn't be perfect, as some parents apply to DCPS pre-K programs as a backup to their private pre-K applications, while other parents miss the pre-K lottery (in February) but still want to send their children to pre-K. But it would be far better than the current audit, which effectively measures nothing.
All students would start school on time together.
One of the unintended consequences of the plethora of charter school choices is that schools don't really know who will show up for school in September. This is largely due to parents holding spots through the summer for multiple schools but only sending their kids to one school.
The result is that classroom compositions are in flux throughout September and October as principals contact students off the wait list to fill suddenly vacated spots. This is challenging for teachers and ultimately hurts students' education.
District education officials and the State Board of Education can start pushing toward a single lottery right away. An education committee in the Council, as many have suggested, could also help move this forward.

School Choice Index from Brookings

The Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings has published
The 2014 Education Choice and Competition Index

Here is their list of school districts that are "leaders in choice"

The report says in part:

"The Recovery School District in New Orleans scores well on nearly all of the components of the ECCI. In particular, there is high availability of choice, with nearly 80% of schools being charters, a supply of affordable private schools, vouchers for private school attendance available from the state, and virtual education provided through Supplemental Course Academy/Course Choice. The school assignment process maximizes the match between parental preference and school assignment through an ideal computer matching algorithm. There is no default school assignment (everyone must choose), a common application for traditional public schools and charters, and information on school performance that includes test results for children attending private schools. Information on school performance is clearly presented with support for parents in understanding and navigating the choice process. Transportation expenses to schools of choice are covered through free public transportation tokens or yellow bus service.

"New York City (NYC) also repeats its position in second place overall and in first place among the 100 largest school districts.2 NYC scores particularly well with respect to its choice process, policies for closing unpopular schools, and information provision to parents and students.

"New Orleans, NYC, Denver, and new to our list of top performers this year, Newark, standout in their use of a centralized computer-based algorithm to assign public high school students to schools in such a way as to maximize the match between student preferences and school assignment, conditional on any admission requirements exercised by the school. Students apply once and receive one offer, assuming they can match with one of the schools they have listed among their choices. New Orleans, Denver, and Newark include charter schools in their single application process, whereas NYC does not."
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Although the report doesn't mention The Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice (IIPSC), this is quite a compliment to IIPSC, since, of those top-10 cities, New Orleans, Newark, Washington DC, and Denver are among the cities in which IIPSC has helped design Uniform Enrollment school choice systems. And New York and Boston are the school districts which initiated the market design contribution to school choice, and in which the IIPSC principals got our start, before IIPSC was formed.

School choice in Denver: how do schools communicate with parents?

The Denver Post reports on developments in the school choice system there, as parents and schools gain experience: Marketing, a need and benefit for Denver schools

"As the novelty wears off for a process that reformed the way Denver parents pick a school for their kids, school leaders are becoming more sophisticated in their marketing, trying to find students who are the right fit.

"The change comes even as participation is decreasing in the three-year-old SchoolChoice application process, which allows parents to fill out only one form to go to any district school. Options, meanwhile, increase each year, and by August, Denver Public Schools will have 200 schools, including 53 charters."
...
"According to data in a report published by A-Plus Denver, 73 percent of new kindergartner families picked a school through the district's SchoolChoice process in 2014, down from 80 percent in 2012.

"Eighth-graders picking a high school have the lowest participation of students in transition grades, with 55 percent filling out a form in 2014, down from 60 percent in 2012.

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My understanding is that students not filling out a form are opting in to their local school.

Busing for schools in Boston and NYC, by Angrist, Gray-Lobe, Idoux & Pathak

 One of the spinoffs of the design of school choice systems in Boston, NYC and elsewhere is that it has opened up the empirical study of school effectiveness, by allowing economists to use some randomness in the assignments while controlling for family preferences to distinguish school effects from student selection.  It has turned out that it's hard to change test scores through school assignments, and neighborhoods remain important. But integration responds to voluntary choice, although the paper below doesn't find effects on college attendance after controlling for the selection of travel by students.

Still Worth the Trip? School Busing Effects in Boston and New York by Joshua Angrist, Guthrie Gray-Lobe, Clemence M. Idoux & Parag A. Pathak, NBER WORKING PAPER 30308  DOI 10.3386/w30308  July 2022

Abstract: "School assignment in Boston and New York City came to national attention in the 1970s as courts across the country tried to integrate schools. Today, district-wide choice allows Boston and New York students to enroll far from home, perhaps enhancing integration. Urban school transportation is increasingly costly, however, and has unclear integration and education consequences. We estimate the causal effects of non-neighborhood school enrollment and school travel on integration, achievement, and college enrollment using an identification strategy that exploits partly-random assignment in the Boston and New York school matches. Instrumental variables estimates suggest distance and travel boost integration for those who choose to travel, but have little or no effect on test scores and college attendance. We argue that small effects on educational outcomes reflect modest effects of distance and travel on school quality as measured by value-added."

"School transportation expenditures today are driven in part by the fact that many large urban school districts allow families to choose schools district-wide, lengthening school commutes for some. District-wide  choice  is  a  feature  of  school  assignment  in  Boston,  Chicago,  Denver,  Indianapolis,Newark,  New Orleans,  Tulsa,  and Washington,  DC, to name a few.  In choice districts,  seats at over-subscribed schools are typically allocated by algorithms that reflect family preferences in the form of a rank-order list and a limited set of school priorities.  ...  Choice in large urban districts is appealing because choice systems potentially decouple school assignment from underlying residential segregation.  Moreover, where school quality is unevenly distributed over neighborhoods, district-wide choice affords all students a shot at schoolsviewed as high-quality.

"This  paper  asks  whether  school  travel  in  the  modern  choice  paradigm  is  working  as  hoped, boosting integration and learning, especially for minority students.  Our investigation focuses on Boston and New York, two cities of special interest because of their high transportation costs and because they’ve long been battlegrounds in the fight over school integration.  We estimate the effects of non-neighborhood school enrollment for students for whom school travel is facilitated by school choice.  In both cities, students who opt for non-neighborhood schooling have higher test scores and are more likely to go to college than those who travel less.  But these estimates may reflect selection bias arising from the fact that more motivated or better-off families are more likely to travel. 

"We  solve  the  problem  of  selection  bias  using  the  conditional  random  assignment  to  schools embedded in Boston and New York’s school matching algorithms.  A given student may be offered a seat at a school in his or neighborhood, or a seat farther away.  Conditional on an applicant’s preferences  and  school  priorities,  modern  choice  algorithms  randomize  seat  assignment,  thereby manipulating distance and travel independently of potential outcomes.

...

" A parsimonious explanation for our findings, therefore, is that travel facilitates integration but does not translate into large enough changes in value-added to change education outcomes much."

Boston Globe looks at school choice in Denver and New Orleans

In the Boston Globe, there's a nice story by Jeremy C. Fox that focuses on school choice in Denver and New Orleans and the work that IIPSC has done there: Denver’s unified school enrollments may offer Boston a lesson

"A few years ago, parents here faced a bewildering array of options when selecting their children’s schools. There were more than 60 enrollment systems within Denver Public Schools alone, and another set for the city’s charter schools, each with distinct timelines and applications.

The confusion discouraged many low-income families from choosing at all, while parents with greater resources took advantage of the complexity to “game the system” in their favor, residents said.

“It did not promote equity with families,” said Karen Mortimer, a Denver public education advocate. “If you were in the know, you got the better schools.”

But four years after the Mile-High City adopted a common enrollment system that provides one-stop shopping for traditional, charter, magnet, and innovation schools, parents praise the ease and convenience of finding the right match.

Interviews with Denver parents, educators, and community groups suggest that the city’s largely controversy-free adoption of unified enrollment offers lessons for Boston, where a similar proposal by Mayor Martin J. Walsh and school leaders has met with vehement opposition from some parents.
...
"Since Denver and New Orleans became the first US cities to unify enrollment in 2012, several other urban communities have followed.

Of about a dozen US cities that have attempted to adopt the system, half have stalled amid political conflicts, according to Neil Dorosin, executive director of the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice, a nonprofit group that builds and implements school assignment systems."

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."
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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
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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.
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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.
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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."

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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.
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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
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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

School choice in Chicago and in D.C.

Here's some news about the new school choice system in Chicago.
Here's the press release from Chicago Public Schools:
Overwhelming Majority of CPS Students Receive Offers to Preferred School Choices Through GoCPS High School Application Process 
81 Percent of Students Will Receive Their First, Second or Third Choice; More Than 26,909 Incoming Freshmen Participated in GoCPS

And here's some background information from GoCPS
Round 1 high school offers were officially released to 8^th grade students and families by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) this afternoon via the new single application system—GoCPS.

Last spring, the Chicago Board of Education voted unanimously in favor of moving to a single application for all public high schools in the district. The decision was a historic shift that solved a major pain point for families and students who, until now, had to navigate more than 290 schools and program options.

New Schools for Chicago and Kids First Chicago have worked diligently alongside community partners, schools, students, parents, and district leaders to ensure successful implementation in the first year of GoCPS. Together with CPS, we are excited to highlight some results of the Round 1 application period:

• 93% of 8th graders successfully submitted applications to high school through the new GoCPS system.
• 92% of students who applied were matched to a school.
• 81% of students were matched to one of their top 3 choices.

Compared to other urban districts, these participation and match results in GoCPS’s first year are exceptional. For example, Denver Public Schools uses a similar system and their highest participation rate is 84% after many years of implementation.

With the right support and plan for continued improvement, Chicago could emerge as the leader not only in universal enrollment, but also in the adoption of modern systems and processes to better serve large, complex student populations.

More Information

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OUR WORK TO SUPPORT CHILDREN, FAMILIES & THE DISTRICT

• Free enrollment support to families, communities, and schools via our Kids First Chicagoinitiative. 
• Ongoing parent focus groups on the GoCPS application process. Working in partnership with CPS, we have polled parents at each stage of the new enrollment process to gain insightful user feedback. 
• Work directly with the district in creating and distributing clearer and more effective information on school quality for parents and students as they prepare to apply to and accept their school options.

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Here's a story from D.C. that highlights that even a good school choice enrollment system doesn't create enough good schools to accommodate all the children, so that until we have enough good schools, school choice will be "playing the lottery" for some families. (But a good system allocates places more efficiently...)
The D.C. lottery is intended to give all kids a fair shot at a top school. But does it?

"Before the District implemented a lottery system using a single application in 2014, parents had to keep track of about 30 lottery deadlines and applications. Charter schools operated their own lotteries, and the traditional public school system ran separate lotteries for lower and upper grades. Chaos ensued. Parents often had to go to each school to submit a lottery application.

Adding to the confusion, charter schools informed parents of the lottery results at different times, which resulted in parents enrolling their children in the first school they heard back from and then, when they received a slot at a more desirable campus, enrolling them there, too.

When Scott Pearson took over the D.C. Public Charter School Board in 2012, he met with Kaya Henderson, who was chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, and they pushed for a unified lottery system. Denver, New Orleans and New York had already streamlined the process, so the technology and precedent were there.

By spring 2014, My School DC was ready for use. Schools aren’t required to enlist in the common lottery, and Pearson said it wasn’t an easy sell.

He worked on convincing the big charter networks, including KIPP and Democracy Prep, to participate, and most other schools followed.

“We had a target customer in mind, and it was a single mom living east of the river who was unbelievably burdened and often locked out of the ability to participate in school choice,” Pearson said.

The engineering behind My School DC is based on the algorithm that earned the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics for formulas that matched thousands of medical residents with hospitals, kidney donors with recipients and New York students with high schools.

Neil Dorosin, executive director of the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice, which develops lottery algorithms, said parents can’t cheat the system, and schools can’t sift through applicants to choose who they want.

Software assigns participants a number that sticks with them until they are matched with a school. Children then get to enroll in that school while remaining on the wait list for any school that a family ranked higher but did not get into.

“All the algorithm is doing is just implementing what that city’s rules are,” Dorosin said. “If you are looking for unfairness, it is not in the algorithm.”

"