| Tomeka Davis
Emory University
Laissez faire education policy: Organization and equity in school choice
FINAL REPORT:
The debate surrounding school choice has become increasingly polemical in recent years. While advocates of choice suggest that it will combat inequality and increase achievement, opponents contend that choice may be transforming inequality, shifting disparities that were once a between-school problem and making them a within-school occurrence.
This study examines the effect of school choice on three aspects of education: school governance and organization, school-level achievement, and inequality in achievement and tracking. I use two competing theoretical frameworks to explain the relationship between choice, organization, tracking, and achievement: a market model favored by economists and conflict model rooted in sociological traditions.
I use data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS) of 2002 and 2004 to assess the effects of school choice. The results of this study suggest that public choice options do little to enhance school organization and school-level achievement gains. Private choice options, particularly Catholic schools, do however have significant positive effects on school organization and school achievement gains. Moreover, rather than reducing the SES gap in achievement, public schools of choice and private schools increase this gap. Although tracking was theorized to be the causal mechanism perpetuating this effect, my findings indicate that choice schools do not intensify racial or SES differences in curricular tracking. Instead, private choice options attenuate the SES gap in tracking.
The findings generated here have important implications for public policy initiatives like No Child Left Behind aimed at increasing achievement levels and reducing race and income-based disparities in education via school choice. If poor and minority parents must rely on public choice options to flee failing schools, choice may not deliver on its promise of enhancing outcomes for these students, at least in terms of achievement. Similarly, private choice options appear to be more equitable in terms of tracking, making initiatives like private school vouchers appear more attractive. However, the attenuation of the SES gap in curricular tracking in private high schools does not translate into increased achievement among lower SES students in these schools. Instead, private schools of choice also increase the SES gap in achievement. Unless choice schools improve other outcomes, policymakers should consider refocusing their efforts on improving poorly performing schools, rather than allowing students to move from school to school. Thus, one possible avenue for future research on school choice is to examine how choice affects other outcomes (labor market outcomes, college entrance, etc) for young adults.
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