School choice and performance gaps in England: a report by Burgess, Cantillon, Greaves and Cavallo

 Estelle Cantillon writes to tell me about her new report with Simon Burgess, Ellen Greaves, and  Mariagrazia Cavallo  on changing the priority criteria in secondary school admissions in England.

"Our starting point was the equity of access to effective schools in England and the role of priority criteria in this regard. England is special in that secondary schools can choose their own priority criteria (within guidelines). Many schools choose geographical criteria or tie-breaking rules, and we show that this is reducing the set of effective schools that disadvantaged pupils have access to. We explore three potential policy reforms: a quota for free-school-meal (FSM) pupils, a lottery for a quota of seats and banding. We find that the FSM quota is not only more effective at increasing access for disadvantaged but does so with less disruption (distance travelled, change in school intakes). Another special feature of our study is that our policy simulations cover all 150+ school districts (called Local Authorities) in England. So no need to worry about: would the effect you find in city X also apply in city Y.  
 
The full report is here: Modifying school choice for more equitable access in England

 Here's a blog post:  Access to highly effective schools: The case for reform
Posted on November 6, 2025 by Ffion Lindsay 

 "How do we address the gap in attainment between the most advantaged and disadvantaged students in the UK? Pioneering research, led by the University of Bristol, reveals the reforms most likely to equalise our education system.
Lead author Simon Burgess, Professor of Economics, explains how the team’s findings could lead to much-needed changes in how school places are allocated.

"There is much to applaud about the school system in England, but also deep problems. Chief among these is the wide and persistent gap in educational attainment between disadvantaged children and pupils from more affluent families.

"For example, in 2019, around 30% of pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) achieved the benchmark performance in GCSEs, compared to double that among more affluent pupils. This gap has barely changed for at least 20 years.

"Part of this gap arises from differences in the effectiveness of the schools these children attend. Richer pupils are much more likely to be assigned to effective secondary schools.

"In fact, richer pupils are over 40% more likely to attend a highly effective secondary school (in the top 25% of value-added, in England called Progress 8). Not only might this be considered unfair for the current generation, it can also perpetuate income inequality through the generations.

 "The geography problem
Differences in the effectiveness of schools attended might simply be the result of families’ preferences for schools. Our research, however, shows that admissions arrangements play an important role in explaining the observed unequal attendance at effective secondary schools.

"Specifically, most English secondary schools explicitly prioritise pupils according to where they live – either through defined catchment areas or by ranking applicants by straight-line distance between home and school.

"This is not neutral: desirable schools generate substantial house price premiums in their catchment areas, effectively pricing out lower-income families. School choice through residential location appears not to be an option for poorer families. We show that richer pupils disproportionately move into the catchment areas of popular schools during their primary school years."

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Reading this from the U.S., I'm struck by how our problem of sending poor children to poor schools is similar across the pond.  In the US we often attribute this in part to the fact that US schools are funded by municipal  real estate taxes, so schools in richer towns are better funded. But it appears that this problem can be reproduced in England simply by admitting students preferentially based on their nearness to schools, when better schools are located near more expensive houses. (This happens in US cities, too.) The between-country comparisons might help to disentangle peer effects from funding effects in what leads to school effectiveness.