School choice is expanding, but the majority of students in countries like the United States still attend the school associated with their residential address. We study assignment policies and reassignments of students, where students apply to attend a magnet school or request to transfer to another school within the public school system. Policymakers and researchers have expressed concerns that these type of reassignment programs could increase racial and socioeconomic stratification and cause an imbalance of resources across schools. We provide evidence from the Wake County Public School System in North Carolina. Our focus is on changes in racial and socioeconomic stratification across schools relative to the existing degree of stratification that exists in the district through its assignment via schools’ attendance boundaries. The reassignment programs available in this district reduce stratification in terms of race, socioeconomic status, student need, and student ability. To place our results in context, we conduct several simulations to compare the observed changes in stratification to what changes are possible. The effects on stratification are similar to what would be expected if students move between schools without regard to school composition, and the effects are small relative to the largest increases or decreases in stratification that could be expected given the volume of reassignments observed in these data. Thus, the reassignment programs we study do not increase stratification in terms of race, socioeconomic status, or student need/ability, but they also do not reduce stratification to a particularly large degree. Our results speak to school choice programs that can be characterized as controlled choice programs in which the district places constraints on moves between schools.
AbdulkadiroğluA.AngristJ.PathakP. (2014). The elite illusion: Achievement effects at Boston and New York exam schools. Econometrica, 82(1), 137–196.
2.
AbdulkadirogluA.PathakP. A.SchellenbergJ.WaltersC. R. (2017). Do parents value school effectiveness? (Technical report). National Bureau of Economic Research.
3.
AbdulkadirogluA.PathakP. A.WaltersC. R. (2015). School vouchers and student achievement: Evidence from the Louisiana Scholarship Program. National Bureau of Economic Research.
4.
AllportG. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Addison-Wesley.
5.
AyscueJ. B.Siegel-HawleyG.KucseraJ.WoodwardB. (2018). School segregation and resegregation in Charlotte and Raleigh, 1989-2010. Educational Policy, 32(1), 3–54.
6.
BifulcoR.CobbC. D.BellC. (2009). Can interdistrict choice boost student achievement? The case of connecticut’s interdistrict magnet school program. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31(4), 323–345.
7.
BifulcoR.LaddH. F.RossS. L. (2009). Public school choice and integration evidence from Durham, North Carolina. Social Science Research, 38(1), 71–85.
8.
BillingsS. B.DemingD. J.RockoffJ. (2013). School segregation, educational attainment, and crime: Evidence from the end of busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(1), 435–476.
9.
CarlsonD.BellE.LenardM. A.CowenJ. M.McEachinA. (2020). Socioeconomic-based school assignment policy and racial segregation levels: Evidence from the wake county public school system. American Educational Research Journal, 57(1), 258–304.
10.
CarrellS. E.HoekstraM.WestJ. E. (2015). The impact of intergroup contact on racial attitudes and revealed preferences (Technical report). National Bureau of Economic Research.
11.
ClotfelterC. T.LaddH. F.VigdorJ. (2005). Who teaches whom? Race and the distribution of novice teachers. Economics of Education Review, 24(4), 377–392.
12.
ClotfelterC. T.LaddH. F.VigdorJ. L. (2010). Teacher credentials and student achievement in high school a cross-subject analysis with student fixed effects. Journal of Human Resources, 45(3), 655–681.
13.
ClotfelterC. T.LaddH. F.VigdorJ. L. (2011). Teacher mobility, school segregation, and pay-based policies to level the playing field. Education Finance and Policy, 6(3), 399–438.
14.
CookJ. (2016). Segregation, student achievement, and postsecondary attainment: Evidence from the introduction of race-blind magnet school lotteries. Working paper.
15.
de CohenC. C.DeterdingN.ClewellB. C. (2005). Who’s left behind? Immigrant children in high and low Lep schools. Urban Institute.
16.
DemingD. J.HastingsJ. S.KaneT. J.StaigerD. O. (2014). School choice, school quality, and postsecondary attainment. American Economic Review, 104(3), 991–1013.
17.
DiemS.FrankenbergE. (2013). The politics of diversity: Integration in an era of political and legal uncertainty. Teachers College Record, 115(11), n11.
18.
DurU.HammondR. G.MorrillT. (2018). Identifying the harm of manipulable school-choice mechanisms. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 10(1), 187–213.
19.
EgaliteA. J.MillsJ. N.WolfP. J. (2017). The impact of targeted school vouchers on racial stratification in Louisiana schools. Education and Urban Society, 49(3), 271–296.
20.
FinderA. (2005). As test scores jump, Raleigh credits integration by income. New York Times, 25.
21.
FrankenbergE.Siegel-HawleyG.WangJ. (2011). Choice without equity: Charter school segregation. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 19(0), 1.
22.
GamoranA. (1996). Student achievement in public magnet, public comprehensive, and private city high schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 18(1), 1–18.
23.
GamoranA.AnB. P. (2016). Effects of school segregation and school resources in a changing policy context. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 38(1), 43–64.
24.
GarciaA. (2012). The reasons why: Student assignment policies and social mobility in wake county, North Carolina. mimeo. Working paper.
25.
GlazermanS.DotterD. (2017). Market signals: Evidence on the determinants and consequences of school choice from a citywide lottery. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 39(4), 593–619.
26.
GoldringE.SmrekarC. (2000). Magnet schools and the pursuit of racial balance. Education and Urban Society, 33(1), 17–35.
27.
GreenP. C.IIIBakerB. D.OluwoleJ. O. (2008). Achieving racial equal educational opportunity through school finance litigation. Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties4(2), 283–392.
28.
HanushekE. A.KainJ. F.RivkinS. G. (2009). New evidence about brown v. board of education: The complex effects of school racial composition on achievement. Journal of Labor Economics, 27(3), 349–383.
29.
HastingsJ.KaneT. J.StaigerD. O. (2009). Heterogeneous preferences and the efficacy of public school choice (NBER Working Paper), Vol. 2145, pp. 1–46.
30.
HastingsJ. S.WeinsteinJ. M. (2008). Information, school choice, and academic achievement: Evidence from two experiments. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 123(4), 1373–1414.
31.
HouckE. A. (2010). Teacher quality and school resegregation: A resource allocation case study. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 9(1), 49–77.
32.
HoxbyC. M. (2000). Does competition among public schools benefit students and taxpayers?American Economic Review, 90(5), 1209–1238.
JacksonC. K. (2009). Student demographics, teacher sorting, and teacher quality: Evidence from the end of school desegregation. Journal of Labor Economics, 27(2), 213–256.
36.
KoedelC.BettsJ. R.RiceL. A.ZauA. C. (2009). The integrating and segregating effects of school choice. Peabody Journal of Education, 84(2), 110–129.
37.
LaddH. F.ClotfelterC. T.HolbeinJ. B. (2017). The growing segmentation of the charter school sector in North Carolina. Education Finance and Policy, 12(4), 536–563.
38.
LauenD. L.FullerS.BarrettN.JandaL. (2017). Early colleges at scale: Impacts on secondary and postsecondary outcomes. American Journal of Education, 123(4), 523–551.
39.
McDermottK. A.FrankenbergE.DiemS. (2015). The “post-racial” politics of race: Changing student assignment policy in three school districts. Educational Policy, 29(3), 504–554.
40.
MickelsonR. A.BottiaM. C.LambertR. (2013). Effects of school racial composition on k–12 mathematics outcomes: A metaregression analysis. Review of Educational Research, 83(1), 121–158.
41.
MickelsonR. A.BottiaM.SouthworthS. (2008). School choice and segregation by race, class, and achievement. National Education Policy Center.
42.
MickelsonR. A.HeathD. (1999). The effects of segregation on African American high school Seniors’ academic achievement. Journal of Negro Education, 68(4), 566–586.
43.
MonarrezT. (2018). Attendance boundary policy and the segregation of public schools in the united states. mimeo. Unpublished manuscript.
44.
ÖzekU. (2009). The effects of open enrollment on school choice and student outcomes. Working Paper 26. National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.
45.
ParcelT. L.TaylorA. J. (2015). The end of consensus: Diversity, neighborhoods, and the politics of public school assignments. UNC Press Books.
46.
PhillipsK. J.LarsenE. S.HausmanC. (2015). School choice & social stratification: How intra-district transfers shift the racial/ethnic and economic composition of schools. Social Science Research, 51, 30–50.
47.
RichP. M.JenningsJ. L. (2015). Choice, information, and constrained options: School transfers in a stratified educational system. American Sociological Review, 80(5), 1069–1098.
48.
SaporitoS. (2003). Private choices, public consequences: Magnet school choice and segregation by race and poverty. Social Problems, 50(2), 181–203.
49.
SchneiderM.ElacquaG.BuckleyJ. (2006). School choice in Chile: Is it class or the classroom?Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 25(3), 577–601.
50.
SikkinkD.EmersonM. O. (2008). School choice and racial segregation in us schools: The role of parents’ education. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(2), 267–293.
51.
SilbermanT. (2002). Wake county schools: A question of balance. In KahlenbergR. D. (Ed.), Divided we fail: Coming together through public school choice (pp. 141–163). Century Foundation.
52.
SteeleL.EatonM. (1996). Reducing, eliminating, and preventing minority isolation in American schools: The impact of the magnet schools assistance program. American Institutes for Research.
53.
SullivanA. L. (2011). Disproportionality in special education identification and placement of English language learners. Exceptional Children, 77(3), 317–334.
54.
TegelerP.HiltonM. (2017). Disrupting the reciprocal relationship between housing and school segregation. Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
WeiherG. R.TedinK. L. (2002). Does choice lead to racially distinctive schools? Charter schools and household preferences. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 21(1), 79–92.
57.
WhitehurstG. J. (2017). New evidence on school choice and racially segregated schools. Evidence Speaks Reports, 2(33), 1–9.
58.
WilliamsJ. D.EcholsF. (1992). Alert and inert clients: The Scottish experience of parental choice of schools. Economics of Education Review, 11(4), 339–350.
59.
WilliamsS. M.HouckE. A. (2013). The life and death of desegregation policy in wake county public school system and Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools. Education and Urban Society, 45(5), 571–588.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
