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.

Experiments on school choice: a survey by Hakimov and Kübler

Hakimov, R., Kübler, D. Experiments on centralized school choice and college admissions: a survey. Exp Econ (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-020-09667-7

Abstract: The paper surveys the experimental literature on centralized matching markets, covering school choice and college admissions models. In the school choice model, one side of the market (schools) is not strategic, and rules (priorities) guide the acceptance decisions. The model covers applications such as school choice programs, centralized university admissions in many countries, and the centralized assignment of teachers to schools. In the college admissions model, both sides of the market are strategic. It applies to college and university admissions in countries where universities can select students, and centralized labor markets such as the assignment of doctors to hospitals. The survey discusses, among other things, the comparison of various centralized mechanisms, the optimality of participants’ strategies, learning by applicants and their behavioral biases, as well as the role of communication, information, and advice. The main experimental findings considered in the survey concern truth-telling and strategic manipulations by the agents, as well as the stability and efficiency of the matching outcome.

From the Conclusions:

"The purpose and style of experiments on school choice and college admissions has changed over time. Many of the early experiments were tests of the theory. Horse races between different school choice mechanisms were conducted. Recently, many studies have dealt with systematic biases in behavior that matter in matching markets, such as bounded rationality, biased self-assessments, etc. Moreover, recent work also focuses on the question of how the exact implementation of a mechanism, e.g., static versus dynamic, with or without advice, afects market outcomes. Thus, the matching literature has started to establish behavioral regularities that can be of interest for policy makers involved in market design and behavioral theorists."

Can we make school choice more efficient?

A new paper by Eduardo Azevedo and Jacob Leshno addresses a recent puzzle in school choice: Can we make school choice more efficient? An Example

Here's their abstract:
"The deferred acceptance mechanism, currently used in the New York City and in the Boston public school systems, can produce Pareto-dominated assignments. When students are non-strategic a Pareto-dominating and efficient mechanism can be achieved by allowing some students to trade schools (e.g. Stable improvement Cycles, Erdil and Ergin 2008). We find that when students are strategic the equilibrium assignments of these mechanisms can be unstable with respect to the true preferences and can be Pareto inferior to the deferred acceptance equilibrium assignment."

The paper follows up on the Erdil and Ergin 2008 AER paper, and also on the paper by Atila Abudlkadiroglu, Parag Pathak and me which discusses the NYC high school match and shows that about a thousand NYC high school students could in principle be made better off
Abdulkadiroglu, Atila , Parag A. Pathak, and Alvin E. Roth, "Strategy-proofness versus Efficiency in Matching with Indifferences: Redesigning the NYC High School Match,'' American Economic Review, 99, 5, Dec. 2009, pp1954-1978.

That paper sets the stage for Azevedo and Leshno by observing that about 1,000 of the approximately 90,000 new high school students each year could have been given better matches if strategy-proofness were not a desiderata, and if their true preferences could be recovered without strategy proofness. So that raises the open question of what kind of preferences would be submitted to a system that tried to get these apparent welfare gains, and whether welfare gains could be achieved at equilibrium:
"Nothing is yet known about what kinds of preferences one could expect to be strategically submitted to such a mechanism, or what their welfare consequences would be. Consequently, there is room for more work to further illuminate the tradeoff between efficiency and strategy-proofness."

Azevedo and Leshno show that there's at least a possibility that attempting to improve welfare while sacrificing strategy-proofness could, in equilibrium, reduce welfare.

One of the exciting things about the modern school choice literature is how it has given rise to questions about matching that didn't arise in other applications (like to labor market clearinghouses). The special feature of school choice is the importance of how ties are broken, between between students who have equal priority for a given school that doesn't have capacity for all of them.

Azevedo and Leshno advance the discussion of how we should evaluate school choice algorithms, in the complex settings in which we're asked to design them. Their paper shows how strategy-proofness and welfare can be intertwined in subtle ways at equilibrium. There's a lot more to learn about this, so their short paper answers one question and raises many others.

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 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."

School choice in New Orleans, evolving

Here's an article from the Times-Picayune about school choice in New Orleans, which will be expanding to include more schools.   One of the paramount issues is communicating effectively with parents.

New Orleans parents need easier access to school choices: John Ayers

"Efforts to include more schools in OneApp, along with improved communication about the application and enrollment process, are critical steps toward a successful school choice system in New Orleans.

"But we can do more.

"In order for school choice policy to be effective, it must respond to the way in which parents navigate the school system, what they value and desire in schools, and how they feel about the education their children are receiving. First, it is critical that the application process be streamlined to include all schools, including School Board charter schools. Additionally, the districts must invest in ongoing clear communication with parents and through parents, recognizing that parents rely most on information from each other.

"Of course, choice among limited high-quality options may not feel like choice at all. New Orleans must continue to focus on improving the quality of its public schools to ensure all parents have access to great school choices close to home. Until then, school choice will do an inadequate job providing parents with access to the best schools for their children. Markets are never perfect, but we can make this one better."

MIT celebrates Parag Pathak

Game theory, in the real world: MIT economist Parag Pathak engineers practical solutions to complicated education problems

...
In 2003, New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, who wanted to revamp the school-choice system, approached a Harvard University professor named Alvin Roth about the problem. Roth had studied the method for matching medical students to their residencies; New York officials hoped something similar would work for their school system.

In turn, Roth asked Pathak, then a first-year PhD student in economics, to look into New York’s school-choice system: Was it a substantive and interesting problem? Pathak decided it was. A decade later, he is still producing new research on the topic, and in 2011 received tenure at MIT, in part because of his work in the area.

Moreover, that work has produced real-world results. Based on the research of Roth and his collaborators, New York City soon adopted what is known as a “deferred-acceptance algorithm” to assign places. Then, Roth’s group, now including economist Tayfun Sonmez, helped Boston review its choice system, leading the city to adopt a new method in 2005.

Using this method, schools first weigh all the students listing those schools as first-choice venues; then, the students who are rejected are essentially allowed to revise their lists, and the process repeats until every student has been matched with a school selection. The crucial difference is that students and families can simply pick the schools they most want to attend, in order.

“Our whole agenda is to try to make these systems strategy-proof,” says Pathak, now an associate professor of economics at MIT. “All these methods move in the direction of simplifying the system for students.” Complicated tactical guesses about popularity are moot; the entire process is based on the substantive merits of schools.

This positive outcome, Pathak says, is the fruit of “trying to think of economics as an engineering discipline,” in order to construct practical solutions to real-world problems.

Within economics, his growing area of specialization is known as “market design.” Beyond schools, market-design problems can be found in health care, financial markets, even the process of keyword searching on the Internet. “These allocation problems are everywhere,” says Pathak, who now also studies school-performance questions and has produced papers examining the quirks of housing markets.

What makes schools good?


"Pathak is the son of Nepalese parents who immigrated to the United States in the 1970s. He grew up in Corning, N.Y., where his father is a doctor and his mother a writer, before attending Harvard as an undergraduate. A direct line can be drawn between Pathak’s career and a class he took during his senior year at Harvard in the spring of 2002, team-taught by Roth and Paul Milgrom, two leaders in market design; Milgrom advised the Federal Communications Commission on the design of their broadcasting-spectrum auctions.

Pathak, an applied mathematics major who graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, says that class allowed him to recognize the possibility of linking game theory with practical problems. He soon enrolled in graduate school in economics at Harvard, received his PhD in 2007 and joined MIT in 2008.

Since then, Pathak’s research on school-choice issues has expanded in part because other places, including Chicago and much of England, have adopted systems similar to the ones he endorses — but due to their own initiative. “It’s as if they followed the discussion in Boston, although there is no evidence of it,” Pathak says. “It’s a great story of how markets evolve.” 

Although strategy-proof systems are gaining in popularity, many cities do not employ them. And yet Pathak believes that in addition to making the selection process simpler, the new systems can lead to a virtuous circle in assessing school quality: If administrators know what students’ real preferences are — as opposed to their tactics-based selections — they can examine what makes certain schools popular and try to institute those elements of good schools in other places, too.

“If we have programs that are oversubscribed, we should figure out why and consider replicating them,” Pathak says.

To be sure, it can be very difficult for people to assess whether or not schools are good in the first place, and for what reasons. In part because of this, Pathak’s interests have developed to include measuring school performance. Along with MIT economists Joshua Angrist and David Autor, he is a founding director of the School Effectiveness &; Inequality Institute at MIT, a new center that launched this year.

Angrist, Pathak and a variety of co-authors have published multiple studies about the performance of charter schools in Massachusetts, for instance, using random samples of students from schools’ admissions lotteries. While recognizing that this can be a “politically charged” issue, Pathak says their aim is simply to shine some empirical light on the matter. So far, the results they have found are nuanced: Some charter schools in urban areas such as Boston have dramatically improved student performance, but charter schools in other parts of Massachusetts have generally performed worse than their non-charter public counterparts.

The researchers are still trying to determine exactly why this is, and aim to expand their studies geographically. But the technical expertise of Pathak and Angrist — a pioneer in developing and refining “natural experiments” in economics — makes them confident they can rigorously equitably assess thorny questions about student performance.

“Through school assignment, we have an engine to measure a lot of things about education production,” Pathak says. And now, students have a vehicle for choosing schools on their merits.
********

Let me add that, along with Atila Abdulkadiroglu and Neil Dorosin and yours truly, Parag continues to assist school districts in the design and implementation of school choice systems via the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice (IIPSC).

School choice in Denver: early reports

Denver has rolled out its new school choice system, and here are some news stories about the results:

DPS school choice program accommodates most students
"In the first year using a new system that centralized school choice applications within Denver Public Schools, a vast majority of students were able to get into their top picks.
"We're seeing enrollment increases all across the city and are thrilled to be serving more Denver families and seeing the high level of participation in SchoolChoice," DPS Superintendent Tom Boasberg said

DPS’ SchoolChoice worked – for most
"Nearly 70 percent of the 23,000 families who participated in Denver Public Schools’ new streamlined enrollment process got into their top choice schools, DPS leaders announced Monday.
"Meanwhile, 80 percent got into their first or second choice school and 83 percent got a spot in their first, second or third choice.
"It was unclear whether the participation in school choice increased this year over previous years, but several parents interviewed said the system seemed more fair and easier to navigate – with less gaming of the system by well-connected parents."

And here's a video news report.

(And here's the IIPSC project page that includes Denver.)

School choice without the assumption of full-information equilibrium by Kapor, Neilson and Zimmerman

Forthcoming in the AER:

Heterogeneous Beliefs and School Choice Mechanisms By Adam J. Kapor and Christopher A. Neilson and Seth D. Zimmerman

Abstract: This paper studies how welfare outcomes in centralized school choice depend on the assignment mechanism when participants are not fully informed. Using a survey of school choice participants in a strategic setting, we show that beliefs about admissions chances differ from rational expectations values and predict choice behavior. To quantify the welfare costs of belief errors, we estimate a model of school choice that incorporates subjective beliefs. We evaluate the equilibrium effects of switching to a strategy-proof deferred acceptance algorithm, and of improving households’ belief accuracy. We find that a switch to truthful reporting in the DA mechanism offers welfare improvements over the baseline given the belief errors we observe in the data, but that an analyst who assumed families had accurate beliefs would have reached the opposite conclusion.
**********

see my earlier post:

Monday, January 28, 2019

School choice in New Haven: studied by Kapor, Neilson and Zimmerman and switching from immediate to deferred acceptance

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.

"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.

“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:

• 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

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)

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)."

Market Design in El Mercurio--Chile's oldest newspaper

Last Tuesday, in Chile I was interviewed by Eduardo Olivares, the editor for Economics and Business of El Mercurio,  which published the interview yesterday. We talked for an hour about market design generally, about how markets work when they're working well or working badly, and we spoke about school choice (where Chile is a leader) and transplantation (where it is not). The interview is behind a paywall, but below are some extracts (retranslated back into English via Google Translate).

On markets generally:

—Many people ask that “markets be free,” as has recently happened in Argentina. Should they be free?

“That's a complicated question. Markets should be free to function well, but they need conditions that allow them to function well. Having a free market does not necessarily mean a market without rules. A wheel can spin freely because it has a well-greased axle and bearings. A wheel by itself cannot turn very well, and the same goes for the market.”

—Who puts the oil in the wheel gears?

“That's the job of market design. Part of what makes markets work well are good market rules. The government has a role in regulating markets, concerning property rights and things like that. But on another level, entrepreneurs do things. Here in Santiago I [can]... call an Uber using the same app and rules I use in California. Uber is a marketplace for passengers and drivers. The rules can be made by both private organizations and the government.”

On prices:

—Do prices matter?

"A lot. “Prices are important to help allocate scarce resources, but also to make them less scarce.”

...

—When do they not matter?

“Let me start with when they matter a lot: in commodity markets. If you want to buy commodities, price is really the only thing that's happening. But when 'El Mercurio' wants to hire journalists, it doesn't limit itself to offering a salary: it wants it to be a good job, with special reporters. Price is important, but in other markets other things are also important. When you get a new job, the first question your friends ask you is not what the salary is, but who you work for.”

On school choice:

“Most markets are not commodity markets... In some markets we don't like prices to work at all. One of the places where Chile is a leader in market design is school choice: how people are assigned to schools and Chile has done a lot of work on this, although mainly for public schools.”

—What do you know about this system in Chile?

“Not long ago, before there was centralized and widespread school choice in Chile, there were the usual problems with decentralized school choice; That is, parents had to get up early to get in line, and they had a difficult process to register their children.”

—The new system has been criticized. Some claim it caused more people to choose the private system over the public school system. Isn't it similar to what is happening in New York, for example?

“There is something to that. In New York and Boston we also have a system that we call charter schools: free access schools, but organized by private entities, even if they are municipal schools. And they also have different standards. School choice is important, but it does not solve the problems of poverty or income inequality. Now, one of the reasons we have school choice in the United States and perhaps also in Chile is because we think that, otherwise, there is a danger that the poor will be condemned to send their children to poor schools. .

—Has there been any successful case in which parents can honestly rank the order of preference for the school they want their children to go to?

“In Chile, procedures are used that [make it] what game  theorists call a dominant strategy to express true preferences. The [remaining] problem is not in creating systems that make it safe to express preferences, but in distributing the information so that people can form preferences sensibly. In the United States, the hardest families to reach are those who don't speak English at home, so it's sometimes difficult to communicate with them. And different families have different feelings about what kind of schools their children should attend.”

“The benefits of school choice come from the fact that some schools may be high quality for some children but not for others, so we would like children to attend the schools that are best quality for them.”

On kidneys:

—You are famous for the proposal that allowed the “kidney exchange.” Years after the first experience, what do you see now in this type of market?

“Kidney exchange is working quite well in the US, but it works especially well for patients who are not too difficult to match. Even in the US, a fairly large country, we have patients who are so difficult to match that we have trouble finding a kidney for them.”

—And in other countries?

“Smaller countries, with 20 million inhabitants, like Chile, would benefit if we could make national borders not so important. When we look at transplants per million inhabitants, Chile is in the middle of the world. But since it is a small country, when the total number of transplants performed is analyzed, Chile has very few. Kidneys are obtained from both deceased and living donors. In Chile, as in much of the world, the majority of transplants come from deceased donors. Kidney exchange would allow more transplants to come from living donors ... “Twenty million is not enough, so it would be very good to see in South America an exchange of kidneys that can cross between countries, which is not so easy to do.”

Equality of exchange and the role of perceptions

“One of the things that worries people when talking about transplants is that [they think it might be] a medical process that exploits the poor. Of course, the thing about kidney exchange is that each pair of people gives one kidney and receives one kidney. It is very egalitarian. I think kidney exchange is a good place to combat this notion that transplantation is like trafficking,” he notes.

—Notions, perceptions are very important. Many people think of “exchange” as the exchange of securities in the stock market.

“That's right, but not every exchange involves money. One of the discussions about money in the world that is taking place in the European Union at the moment is about payment to blood plasma donors. In the EU, only Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary pay blood plasma donors. And those are the only EU countries that have as much blood plasma as they need. The others have to import everything, and they do it from the United States. The United States is the Saudi Arabia of blood plasma (…) The World Health Organization says that plasma must be obtained in each country, and from unpaid donors. You have to be self-sufficient... an economist finds that a little funny. Blood is a matter of life and death. “When there is a pandemic, we do not tell countries that they must be self-sufficient [in vaccines].”

—When we talk about these exchanges of blood plasma and kidneys, school choice systems, we are talking about the same idea: coincident or paired markets. But the concept of the market has been so questioned, especially by some political groups, for so long...

"It's true. Now,  kidney exchange is special because money doesn't change hands. Money changes hands to get medical care, you have to pay doctors, nurses and hospitals. But we are not talking about buying kidneys from donors, but rather that, at the patient level, each pair receives a kidney and donates a kidney. It is radically egalitarian. Many people who think about markets may not think of it as a market, but I think that's a mistake. Many markets are not just about money… we would worry much less about markets if income and wealth inequality did not exist. “What worries us about markets is that some people are poor and some people are rich, and markets seem like a way to give the rich an advantage.”

“There is no doubt that being rich is better than being poor. The real question is what do we do to alleviate poverty. Making it invisible is not the same as alleviating it. One of the reasons I think many countries don't allow blood and plasma donors to be paid is because they don't like the way that looks. It reminds them that some people would like to get some money and would donate blood for it.”

Apparently, according to the caption, I'm "affable and smiling" (although not in this picture:)

I was in Chile to participate in what turned out to be a wonderful workshop on market design at the University of Chile, organized by Itai Ashlagi, José Correa, and Juan Escobar.

Some related recent posts:

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Market design: some press accounts in Chile

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Public lecture today at the Casa Central de la Universidad de Chile:“Quién obtiene qué y por qué: La nueva economía del diseño de mercados”

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Market Design Workshop 18 - 20 December 2023 Santiago, Chile

Saturday, November 4, 2023

The EU proposes strengthening bans on compensating donors of Substances of Human Origin (SoHOs)--op-ed in VoxEU by Ockenfels and Roth

#########

Update (Dec. 27): Here's an account of my closing public talk from the U. Chile's Center for Mathematical Modeling, one of the hosts of the market design workshop.

Alvin Roth: “Markets are human artifacts, they are tools that we build ourselves to help us”.

And here's a picture at the close, including some of those mentioned above: At my far left in the picture is José Correa,  who in addition to his other roles is Vice Rector for Information Technologies. Next to him is Alejandra Mizala, prorrector (provost) of the university.  Next to her (immediately to my left) is Rector of the University of Chile, Rosa Devés, and immediately to my right is market designer and director of the MIPP Millennium Institute, Juan Escobar. Next to him is Héctor Ramírez, director of the Center for Mathematical Modeling. And next to him (at my far right) is professor Rafael Epstein who (along with Correa, Escobar, and his daughter Natalie Epstein) has been involved with school choice in Chile, among other things.

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%

Matching and market design at the ASSA meetings

Here are some matching and market design sessions that caught my eye on today's program

Jan 04, 2016 8:00 am, Hilton Union Square, Union Square 20 
Econometric Society

Advances in Matching Theory (A1)

Presiding: ALESSANDRO PAVAN (Northwestern University)

Matching Design with Vertically- and Horizontally-Differentiated Preferences

ALESSANDRO PAVAN (Northwestern University)

[View Abstract]

Full Substitutability in Trading Networks

SCOTT DUKE KOMINERS (Harvard University)

[View Abstract]

Matching with Externalities

MAREK PYCIA (University of California-Los Angeles)

[View Abstract]

A Note on Stability in One-to-One, Multi-Period Matching Markets

MACIEJ KOTOWSKI (Harvard University)

[View Abstract]

Stability Concepts in Matching Under Distributional Constraints

FUHITO KOJIMA (Stanford University)

[View Abstract]

Jan 04, 2016 10:15 am, Hilton Union Square, Union Square 3 & 4 
Korea-America Economic Association

Market Design Approach to School Choice (C7, D4)

Presiding: JINWOO KIM (Seoul National University)

Integrating Schools for Centralized Admissions

BUMIN YENMEZ (Carnegie Mellon University)

MEHMET EKMEKCI (Boston College)

[View Abstract] [Download Preview]

Promoting School Competition Through School Choice: A Market Design Approach

JOHN WILLIAM HATFIELD (McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin)

FUHITO KOJIMA (Stanford University)

YUSUKE NARITA (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

[View Abstract]

Minimal Envy Efficient Assignment Mechanisms: The Design of New Orleans OneApp

ATILA ABDULKADIROGLU (Duke University)

YEON-KOO CHE (Columbia University)

PARAG A. PATHAK (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

ALVIN E. ROTH (Stanford University)

OLIVIER TERCIEUX (Paris School of Economics)

[View Abstract]

A Robust Redesign of High School Match

SAM ILMYOUNG HWANG (University of British Columbia)

[View Abstract]

Discussants:

YOUNGWOO KOH (Hanyang University)

JINWOO KIM (Seoul National University)

YINGHUA HE (Toulouse School of Economics)

SOOHYUNG LEE (University of Maryland)

Jan 05, 2016 8:00 am, Hilton Union Square, Franciscan D 
American Economic Association

Market Design for Student Placement: Econometrics and Empirical Evidence (I2, D4)

Presiding: BERNARD SALANIE (Columbia University)

Demand Analysis Using Strategic Reports: An Application to a School Choice Mechanism

NIKHIL AGARWAL (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

PAULO SOMAINI (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

[View Abstract]

Structural Estimation of a Model of School Choices: The Boston Mechanism Versus Its Alternatives

CATERINA CALSAMIGLIA (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona)

CHAO FU (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

MAIA GÜELL (University of Edinburgh, London School of Economics, CEPR, FEDEA, and IZA)

[View Abstract]

College Choice Allocation Mechanisms: Structural Estimates and Counterfactuals

CARVALHO JOSE RAIMUNDO (Universidade Federal do Ceará)

THIERRY MAGNAC (Toulouse School of Economics)

QIZHOU XIONG (Toulouse School of Economics)

[View Abstract]

Beyond Truth-Telling: Preference Estimation with Centralized School Choice

GABRIELLE FACK (Université Paris 1 and Paris School of Economics)

JULIEN GRENET (Paris School of Economics)

YINGHUA HE (Toulouse School of Economics)

[View Abstract] [Download Preview]

Discussants:

CHRISTOPHER A. NEILSON (Princeton University)

JEREMY FOX (University of Michigan)

ALFRED GALICHON (Sciences Po Paris)

BERNARD SALANIE (Columbia University)

Jan 05, 2016 8:00 am, Hilton Union Square, Union Square 16 
Econometric Society

Topics in Industrial Organization (A1)

Presiding: JOHN LAZAREV (New York University)

Estimating Consumer Substitution Patterns and Welfare Loss Under Retail Stockouts

JUNICHI SUZUKI (University of Toronto)

[View Abstract]

Research Proximity and Productivity: Long-Term Evidence From Agriculture

ALEXANDER WHALLEY (University of California-Merced)

SHAWN KANTOR (Florida State University)

[View Abstract]

Input Allocation and Downstream Market Structure: The Unintended Consequences of Congestion Management in the Airline Industry

JOHN LAZAREV (New York University)

[View Abstract]

Experiments as a Bridge from Market Design Theory to Market Design Practice: Changing the Course Allocation Mechanism at Wharton

ERIC BUDISH (University of Chicago)

[View Abstract] [Download Preview]

Measuring the Bias of Technological Change

ULRICH DORASZELSKI (University of Pennsylvania)

[View Abstract] [Download Preview]