Current Projects
-
EdWeek Highlights CI Parental Choice Research
Click here to read the article on new teachers in New Orleans’ schools.
-
Report says New Orleans parents need better information for school choice to work
Click here to read an article in The Advocate about our recent Spotlight on Choice report.
-
Spotlight on Choice: Parent Opinions on School Selection in New Orleans
-
2012 ACT Scores show large gains for some RSD charter schools
Click here to read NOLA by the Numbers: ACT Scores, Class of 2012.
Research Archive
-
The State of Public Education in New Orleans: 2012 Report
-
Is Louisiana’s Recovery School District a Model for Other States?
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute draws lessons for Ohio in this new report.
-
Rethinking Education Governance for the Twenty-First Century
-
Charter-School Management Organizations: Diverse Strategies and Diverse Student Impacts
New report looks at CMOs around the country, including in New Orleans.
Does Information Help Families Choose Schools? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design
Michael Henderson
Harvard Kennedy School Program on Education Policy and Governance
August 2010
Abstract:
Does public information about school quality lead parents to sort their children out of schools with relatively poor performance? Use of this exit option in response to information about school quality has the potential to indirectly foster school responsiveness to quality concerns. To determine whether this information aects student exit, I use a regression discontinuity design to examine the eect of school grades on exit. Results indicate that parents do not seem to respond to information about school quality generally and, thus, cast doubt on the eectiveness of indirect accountability to promote educational improvement. However, there is limited evidence that particularly poor school performance accompanied by institutional mechanisms for school choice promote student sorting away from low-quality schools.