Parental preferences and school competition
Subtitle: evidence from a public school choice program
By: Justine S. Hastings, Thomas J. Kane, Douglas O. Staiger.
Contributors: Kane, Thomas J.; Staiger, Douglas.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 11805; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 11805.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: School choice -- North Carolina -- Mecklenburg County.; Public schools -- North Carolina -- Mecklenburg County.
Description: "This paper uses data from the implementation of a district-wide public school choice plan in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina to estimate preferences for school characteristics and examine their implications for the local educational market.  We use parental rankings of their top three choices of schools matched with student demographic and test score data to estimate a mixed-logit discrete choice demand model for schools.  We find that parents value proximity highly and the preference attached to a school's mean test score increases with student's income and own academic ability.  We also find considerable heterogeneity in preferences even after controlling for income, academic achievement and race, with strong negative correlations between preferences for academics and school proximity.  Simulations of parental responses to test score improvements at a school suggest that the demand response at high-performing schools would be larger than the response at low-performing schools, leading to disparate demand-side pressure to improve performance under school choice"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
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Mode of access: World Wide Web.