Ep. 21: The consquences of school choice.

In the US, most students enroll in their neighborhood school. But sometimes, they have a choice. Families might be given vouchers for other public or private institutions further from their homes. Policymakers’ hope is that kids in underperforming schools won’t be limited by where they can afford to live. Harvard professor Chris Avery says that the housing market is important to how school choice programs function. In the January issue American Economic Review, Avery and his co-author Parag Pathak update some of the economic models from a highpoint of school-choice research in the 1990s to consider how these programs affect where people live. Their results show how choice programs can actually undercut their own goals. Avery spoke with the AEA’s Chris Fleisher about the research on this issue, the challenges of detangling school assignment from family income, and the potential implications for educational reform.