Mathematica

This brief summarizes a technical report that describes what parents look for when they choose a school. Researchers used these findings to explore how parents’ preferences affect the sorting of students into schools under different policies. The data come from the 2014 school lottery in Washington, D.C., where families submitted rank-ordered lists of their preferred schools from a long list of options, including charter schools and traditional public schools. Collectively, these parent-submitted rankings provide a powerful “market signal” about what school attributes are in the greatest demand.
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