Wednesday, May 20, 2015
IIPSC: the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Updates on school choice
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. "
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Confusion in NYC high school wait lists
Here's a current story from Chalkbeat that suggests that the details are still opaque, but that families are learning that the waitlist position they were given isn't reliable:
‘How can you move back on a waiting list?’: NYC’s high school admissions tweaks spark confusion
By Alex Zimmerman May 8, 2020
"students vying for the city’s most coveted schools are discovering that their position on high school waitlists can worsen over time, a situation that has come as a surprise to some families — adding anxiety to an admissions process that is already famous for its complexity.
...
"Every student who fills out an application and does not get into their top choice is automatically waitlisted. If you get your third choice school, for example, you’ll be on the waitlist for your No. 1 and 2 choices. Nearly 44,000 students did not get into their first choice high school this year, automatically placing them on at least one waitlist.
"The second way is that students can add themselves to any waitlist once the initial matching process is over, even for schools a student didn’t initially apply to.
"In general, students who initially applied to a school but didn’t get in and are automatically added to its waitlist should be ranked ahead of students who add themselves later on, officials said. But there are exceptions.
"The first major exception is if a student is in a higher priority group than someone who is already on the waitlist. Some schools, for instance, give preference to students who live in certain neighborhoods, which can override a student’s position on the waitlist even if they were added first. (Officials said this is the most common reason a student would see their position worsen.)
"Olga Ramos, the admissions director at Bard High School Early College Queens, pointed to a second reason families can move backward — something that surprised her at first.
"If a student got into their first choice school, and listed Bard as their second choice, they could still add themselves to Bard’s waitlist and be considered as if they had been automatically added — potentially bypassing students who were already on the list."
*********
Here's an earlier story in Chalkbeat by Mr. Zimmerman, indicating that the system was still pretty opaque as the school choice process got ready to announce admissions in March:
NYC high school offers are coming this week with a big change: waitlists. Here’s what you should know. By Alex Zimmerman Mar 18, 2020
Here's what was known then...
"What are these waitlists, anyway?
Here's a story from the time of the initial announcement:
Goodbye round two applications, hello waitlists: NYC announces changes to high school admissions
By Christina Veiga and Alex Zimmerman Aug 15, 2019
"Starting next year, the city will allow students to sit on waiting lists for schools they wanted to attend, but didn’t get into. The city is also eliminating the second round of admissions, which it now uses to for students who aren’t matched to a school they applied to during the typical process.
...
"“It’s like going to a store and getting the ticket, you know what number you are, and you know how many folks are ahead of you, and you’ll be able to watch the process go,” said Deputy Chancellor Josh Wallack. “You’ll also be able to talk with an administrator in a school who can give you a sense of how much waitlists move each year and that varies a bit by school.”
*****
I'm still confused about a different issue that I haven't yet seen addressed. In the original school choice system using the deferred acceptance algorithm, there was a second round in which students unmatched in the first round were asked for additional preferences over schools, so that they could be matched. How were those unmatched students assigned to schools this year?
Here's my August post:
Friday, August 16, 2019
Monday, February 16, 2015
School choice in Detroit?
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Debate over school choice
The Boston Globe ran a series of four editorials.
1. Boston Globe editorial: School-assignment plan — a relic in need of a full overhaul
"whenever officials reassess the Boston school-assignment plan, the busing crisis remains the touchpoint. Segregation was the original sin of the Boston schools - the conscious failure to invest in schools in poor, black neighborhoods - and remains the most oft-cited reason why the city should resist proposals to return the system to its neighborhood roots.
"Boston’s punishment is a daunting, time-consuming assignment process that drives away thousands of families - some to charter schools, some to Metco, and many out of the city entirely. It’s a plan that doesn’t remotely provide desegregation - with some schools more than 99 percent minority - but that officials are reluctant to change for fear of upsetting the fragile political equilibrium that sustains it.
"What remains is a system where students travel on buses to schools far from their homes, a daily migration that deprives them of playmates, consumes precious hours that could be devoted to learning, and costs the city $73 million - about 10 percent of the schools budget - for transportation alone.
"In addressing the sins of the past, the current assignment plan also masks the sins of the present. A formula so complicated that only the most sophisticated parents understand it, the plan combines parental choice, the luck of the lottery, and a built-in preference to keep siblings together. But it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the whole buckling contraption is designed to make up for the fact that about half of Boston’s schools rank in the bottom fifth on statewide tests."
2. Boston Globe editorial proposing smaller zones which "would give families a smaller range of choices, but make them more meaningful": Let students stay near homes — but offer choice as needed
3. Globe editorial on a successful pilot school: Leadership and flexibility, not buses, improve schools
4. Last in the series, Globe editorial imagining how a system of largely neighborhood schools should work: Future of Boston schools must reflect city’s transformation
""The Boston of the 1970s is long gone. What’s needed now is a return to normality, to a system where most kids go to school near their homes, and follow a predictable path to middle school. Those who seek a different experience - through the performing arts, two-way bilingual education, or intensive math and science, among other subjects - can find exciting options through magnet schools. Choice should be used to highlight the varied programs available in a big, urban system - not as a way to scramble the map, sending children on an hours-long odyssey in search of better principals and teachers."
The Bay State Banner summarizes their view of this debate: Superintendent to take on school assignment process
"The current school assignment process has been roundly criticized by parents in neighborhoods throughout the city. While many in the white community, including many city councilors, advocate for a return to a neighborhood schools system, where seats in any given school would be reserved for children who live in close proximity, many parents in the black community say they want better choices for their children."
NY Times op-ed: Why School Choice Fails, in which a Washington D.C. mom writes about how the process of closing failed schools left her neighborhood without any neighborhood schools.
And here's a NY Times letter in support of school choice: Does School Choice Improve Education?
"If access to high-performing schools has to come down to a number, better it be a lottery number than a ZIP code."
Sunday, May 21, 2017
New York City school choice in the NY Times: Not all NYC high schools are good yet
The Broken Promises of Choice in New York City Schools
The city’s high school admissions process was supposed to give every student a real chance to attend
a good school. But 14 years in, it has not delivered.
By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS and FORD FESSENDEN MAY 5, 2017
Here's a paragraph that summarizes the main point:
"Ultimately, there just are not enough good schools to go around. And so it is a system in which some children win and others lose because of factors beyond their control — like where they live and how much money their families have."
The story follows several students at a middle school in the Bronx:
"The Times spent months following the high school application process at Pelham Gardens, where families do not have the advantages that routinely open doors to the city’s best schools. Many families are new to the country, and most are poor."
Parag Pathak (who played a critical role in organizing the NYC high school match--see e.g. here and here) wrote a letter to the NY Times summarizing his reaction to the story. As it appears that the Times won't publish the letter, he gave me permission to reproduce it:
"May 5, 2017
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
NYC school choice: long lines for high school tours (and some confusion about first choices)
The NY Times has a story about long lines forming for tours of a desirable public high school:
Why White Parents Were at the Front of the Line for the School Tour
The high stakes of high school admissions in New York — and the lengths some go to get any small advantage. By Eliza Shapiro
"Parents who pay $200 for a newsletter compiled by a local admissions consultant know that they should arrive hours ahead of the scheduled start time for school tours.
"On a recent Tuesday, there were about a hundred mostly white parents queued up at 2:30 p.m. in the spitting rain outside of Beacon High School, some toting snacks and even a few folding chairs for the long wait. The doors of the highly selective, extremely popular school would not open for another two hours for the tour.
"Parents and students who arrived at the actual start time were in for a surprise. The line of several thousand people had wrapped around itself, stretching for three midtown Manhattan blocks.
...
"Many New Yorkers cannot leave work in the middle of the afternoon, and some students surely did not know that the open house — or even the school — existed in the first place."
**********
The story goes on to talk about the matching system for high schools, which uses a deferred acceptance algorithm. Parag Pathak points out to me that one paragraph contains a sentence that is easy to interpret incorrectly:
"Beacon, unlike Stuyvesant, does not have an admissions test. But to win a spot, students must have high standardized test scores and grades, along with a strong portfolio of middle school work and admissions essays. Students are much less likely to be accepted if they do not list Beacon as their top choice." (emphasis added)
Parag writes about this line: "while factually correct, the statement creates a misleading impression: a student is only less likely to get Beacon if they didn't list it as their top choice in the case that they were assigned their first choice school instead. And most people who apply to Beacon list it first because it's their top choice. "
The manner in which the deferred acceptance algorithm (with students proposing) makes it safe for families to state their true preferences can be summarized this way: If you list Beacon as your second choice, and don't get your first choice, then your chance of admission to Beacon is the same as if you had listed it as your first choice.
Of course, even with that guarantee, a family's choice may not be simple if they would have liked to rank order 15 schools, and are only allowed to list 12. Then they have to consider whether, if they are rejected by their first choice, they are likely to be accepted by Beacon, or whether rejection from their first choice is a signal that they might not be competitive at Beacon either. (In which case, listing Beacon as first choice wouldn't have helped...)
See my recent post:
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Denver's new school choice plan: communication is paramount
"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."
Saturday, April 7, 2018
School choice in Chicago and in D.C.
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 8th 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.
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.
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.
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.”
"
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
School choice in Denver
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.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Neil Dorosin and school choice in Brooklyn, in the WSJ
School-Choice Expert Has Unique Take on Brooklyn District’s New Admissions System
Neil Dorosin’s daughter went through the middle-school process and landed at a charter; ‘It was a complicated decision’
By Leslie Brody, Sept. 21, 2019
"His family’s choice gives a glimpse into how families grapple with decisions as Mayor Bill de Blasio ’s administration experiments with ways to better integrate one of the nation’s most segregated school systems. The School Diversity Advisory Group, appointed by the mayor, cautioned last month that if the city public schools lose students to private schools or other options, “it will become even more difficult to create high-quality integrated schools that serve the interests of all students.”
Here's the WSJ's accompanying photo of Neil:
And here's a picture of the four of us modeling casual wear in Stockholm in 2012.
Parag Pathak, Al Roth, Atila Abdulkadiroglu, and Neil Dorosin |
Monday, July 11, 2011
School assignment as viewed by families over time, when sibs are given priority
Two recent papers model some of the timing issues facing families thinking about school (or daycare) placement, when there are preferences for incumbent students, and the siblings of incumbent students. Needless to say, mechanisms that are strategy proof for static choice problems are no longer strategy proof when the strategy sets are expanded to take account of the dynamic problem. Both papers will be presented at the July 11 - 15, 2011: International Conference on Game Theory at Stony Brook.
The papers are:
The Daycare Assignment Problem, by John Kennes, Daniel Monte and, Norovsambuu Tumennasan
(HT: EL)
"First, we study the concept of stability, and to account for the dynamic nature of the problem, we propose a novel solution concept, which we call strong stability. With a suitable restriction on the priority orderings of schools, we show that strong stability and the weaker concept of static stability will coincide. We then extend the well known Gale-Shapley deferred acceptance algorithm for dynamic problems and we prove that it yields a matching that satisfies strong stability. We show that it is not Pareto dominated by any other matching, and that, if there is an efficient stable matching, it must be the Gale-Shapley one. However, contrary to static problems, the Gale-Shapley algorithm does not necessarily Pareto dominate all other strongly stable mechanisms. Most importantly, the Gale-Shapley algorithm is not strategy-proof. In fact, one of our main results is a much stronger impossibility result: For the class of dynamic matching problems that we study, there are no algorithms that satisfy strategy-proofness and strong stability. Second, we show that, due to the overlapping generations structure of the problem, the also well known Top Trading Cycles algorithm is neither Pareto efficient nor strategy-proof. We conclude by showing that a variation of the serial dictatorship is strategy-proof and efficient.
and
Dynamic School Choice by Umut Dur, a student at UT Austin, who I heard in Montreal...
Abstract:
"Both families and public school systems desire siblings to be assigned to the same school. Although students with siblings at the school have a higher priority than students who do not, public school systems do not guarantee sibling assignments. Hence, families with more than one child may need to misstate their preferences if they want their children to attend to the same school. In this paper, we study the school choice problem in a dynamic environment where some families have two children and their preferences and priority orders for the younger child depend on the assignment of the elder one. In this dynamic environment, we introduce a new mechanism which assign siblings to the best possible school together if parents desire them to attend the same school. We also introduce a new dynamic fairness notion which respects priorities in a dynamic sense. Finally, we show that it is possible to attain welfare gains when school choice problem is considered in a dynamic environment."
Jacob Leshno, who will be at the Stony Brook conference, writes to me about these papers as follows.
"The incentive problems in the daycare problem are akin to the incentive problems of the Boston mechanism. In the Boston mechanism changing your report changes your priority (the Boston mechanism is equivalent to DA where priorities are changed so students who ranked a school as their k-th choice get higher priority than student who rank the school > k). In the daycare problem your report changes your priority since priorities are history dependent (for example, kids are guaranteed to be allowed to stay where they first got admitted). Misreporting preferences to get a more advantageous priority can be a profitable manipulation, and these manipulations will probably still persist even when the market becomes large."
Saturday, January 15, 2022
Neighborhoods matter in school choice
Here's a working paper that observes that assignments of places to pre-kindergarten students remains strongly influenced by where the children live, even in the presence of a school choice system. I.e. many pre-kindergarten students go to neighborhood schools.
Distance to Schools and Equal Access in School Choice Systems, by Mariana Laverde
Abstract: This paper studies the limits of school choice policies in the presence of residential segregation. Using data from the Boston Public Schools choice system, I show that white prekindergarteners are assigned to higher-achieving schools than minority students, and that cross-race school achievement gaps under choice are no lower than would be generated by a neighborhood assignment rule. To understand why choicebased assignments do not reduce gaps in school achievement, I use data on applicants’ rank-order choices to estimate preferences over schools, and consider a series of counterfactual assignments. I find that half of the gap in school achievement between white and Black or Hispanic students is explained by minorities’ longer travel distance to high-performing schools. Differences in demand parameters explain a smaller fraction of the gap, while algorithm rules have no effect."
From the conclusions:
"The salience of travel costs shows a first-order channel for why neighborhoods matter, highlighting how the effective provision of public goods can be affected by geography at very granular levels. In some way these results are not surprising. Most, if not all, of the papers that study school demand agree that distance is a key factor in parental choices. This paper takes this observation one step further and quantifies how much this cost limits the effectiveness of school choice policies in equalizing access to high-achieving schools. The results show that even in a generous choice environment where parents face minimal restrictions to their choices and free transportation is provided, distance can contribute greatly to inequity and that the design of the assignment algorithm can do little to break structural place-based inequities. This finding is not only relevant for the pre-kindergarten population. Not only we know that early investments can have lasting impacts on adult outcomes, but also, choice systems are typically designed to grandfather students into subsequent grades within a school. Then, even if travel costs are lower for older children, early assignments are held for several years after. In consequence, inequities in pre-kindergarten extend well after that period."
Monday, May 11, 2015
Rethinking school competition in Sweden
"Sweden has been urged to halt the steep decline in the international ranking of its schools by taking action to limit parents’ and pupils’ right to choose.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
School choice: what makes schools popular in Boston
Popularity matters in school lottery: The district’s hidden gems struggle to gain attention from parents.
""The principal of Higginson-Lewis K-8 School and one of her first-grade teachers stood amid a swirl of school-shopping families at the Showcase of Schools, waiting to deliver their sales pitch.
...
"It’s like being a Hilton Hotel in between two Ritzes,’’ Simmons, the first-grade teacher, said of the schools to her right and left, Hernandez K-8 and Kilmer K-8, both with more applicants than prekindergarten seats. The inverse is true at Higginson-Lewis, making it one of the least sought-after schools in Boston - at least according to a school district tally akin to a judge’s score sheet.
"The city uses a lottery system that was intended to give all students access to high-achieving classrooms, regardless of neighborhood or life circumstance. But families fixate on a collection of well-known, fiercely sought-after schools, largely ignoring those with lesser reputations. And over the past two decades, popularity has often become a proxy for quality, making it even harder for schools to get off that second rung.
"Popularity is driven by parents with time, inclination, and sometimes the means to enter the school lottery early, armed with information and expectations. Their preferences create a system of prized schools, and those in low demand - schools whose reputations have suffered because they are in higher-crime neighborhoods, serve predominantly poor students, and have, in some cases, test scores lower than average.
...
"Each year, the district creates a “demand report’’ to help inform parents’ decisions. It shows how many parents listed a school among their top three picks. Parents look at the list and seize on schools they like, but also immediately see the schools they want to avoid, schools they often know little about.
...
"The answer lies in who is, and who is not, choosing a school and when they choose. Popular schools have become synonymous with the choices of white middle-class families, principals and families say. And the demand report reflects the choices of families who choose early.
"Oliver said parents of color and those in low-income communities “don’t always go in to make choices when the lottery starts. We have a lot of people who can’t make a commitment until June or even Labor Day.’’
...
"The lottery system was created in the name of giving parents more choice. Still, Boston’s dreams of equal access to quality remain deferred, with many of the least-selected schools lacking racial and economic diversity. The Higginson-Lewis has only 10 white students in a school of about 425, and Marshall has just eight white students in a school of 713.
“People will come to visit and they will say: ‘How many white students are in the class? I don’t want my child to be the only one,’ ’’ said Oliver, the Higginson principal.
...
"Middle-class parents often aren’t willing to send their children to a school next to Malcolm X Park in Roxbury or on a street sandwiched between Geneva Avenue and Bowdoin Street in Dorchester, where neighborhood violence has, at times, landed on the school’s doorstep.
...
"School choice is “pretty complicated stuff, and people are always eager to come up with pretty simple solutions,’’ said Curt Dudley-Marling, a Boston College professor who studies patterns of school failure and success. “It always seems to me that it’s rigged for parents who have the most resources.’’
"Not all families have the benefit of active parent groups that organize school tours to help families vet their options, which in Boston could mean as many as 20 public school options, not including charters. Single parents, families new to the country, parents of disabled children, or families struggling with the demands of life often are unable to investigate every option.
“I can’t imagine they have time, much less the resources, to go to fairs and all these things,’’ Dudley-Marling said. Instead, they, like most people, default to what they have heard within their circle of influence."
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Deferred acceptance in Ghanian school choice
It describes a version of a deferred acceptance algorithm (a clearinghouse algorithm that has been discovered a number of times and places, but that game theorists associate with Gale and Shapley 1962), and describes an essential feature, which is that if student A would have displaced student B at school S had he ranked school S first, he will also displace student B at school S even if he ranks school S second (or lower). This is what makes it safe to list schools in your true order of preferences.
"4.2 Displacement
a. Selection on Merit
The computer places all qualified candidates into their first choice schools using the ranking order. The aggregate score of six subjects of each candidate is used to do the ranking.
b. Displacement of 1st choice candidates by 2nd choice candidates as a matter of merit or better performance
The ranking may displace 1st choice candidates with 2nd choice candidates; this will be on merit and not choice. The following table is an illustration:
"Kwasi and Kofi make the following choices of schools and programmes.
...[Table showing that Kwasi, with an aggregate 'score' of 400 ranks Anglican as his second choice, while Kofi, with a score of only 350 ranks Anglican as his first choice...]
"Suppose the cut-off for Science Programme for Opoku Ware is 420 and that for Anglican School is 350, Kwasi is sent to Anglican to compete with first choice candidates for science Programme because his aggregate score is just below the cut-off for Science Programme for Opoku Ware School. Kwasi is then sent to Anglican to compete with the first choice science candidates. Since Kwasi’s aggregate score is higher than that of Kofi’s, Kwasi will then displace Kofi."
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Report on Denver School Choice--first year
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.
Denver school choice is an IIPSC project, see my earlier blog posts.