公立学校选择的影响：来自洛杉矶“选择区”的证据
The Impact of Public School Choice: Evidence from Los Angeles’s Zones of Choice
Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2023 · [{"name": "Christopher Campos", "affiliation": ["National Bureau of Economic Research"]}, {"name": "Caitlin Kearns", "affiliation": ["University of Chicago", "Film Independent"]}]
中文摘要
一个扩大学校选择的学区，能否比基于就近入学的分配制度为学生带来更好的结果？本文研究“选择区”（Zones of Choice, ZOC）项目，这是洛杉矶联合学区（LAUSD）的一项学校选择举措，在部分社区建立了小型高中市场，但在学区其他区域保留了原有的入学区边界。我们采用双重差分（DID）设计，考察选择对学生学业成绩和大学入学的市场层面影响。ZOC市场中的学生表现显著改善，缩小了ZOC社区与学区其他地区之间在学业成绩和大学入学方面的差距。竞争越激烈的学校，其ZOC效应越大，这支持了竞争是关键作用渠道这一观点。需求估计表明，家庭对学校的学术质量赋予相当大的权重，从而使学校获得竞争引致的激励，去提升其办学成效。证据表明，公立学校选择项目有潜力提高学校质量，并缩小基于居住社区的教育机会差距。
Abstract
Abstract Does a school district that expands school choice provide better outcomes for students than a neighborhood-based assignment system? This article studies the Zones of Choice (ZOC) program, a school choice initiative of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that created small high school markets in some neighborhoods but left attendance zone boundaries in place throughout the rest of the district. We study market-level effects of choice on student achievement and college enrollment using a difference-in-differences design. Student outcomes in ZOC markets increased markedly, narrowing achievement and college enrollment gaps between ZOC neighborhoods and the rest of the district. The effects of ZOC are larger for schools exposed to more competition, supporting the notion that competition is a key channel. Demand estimates suggest families place substantial weight on schools’ academic quality, providing schools with competition-induced incentives to improve their effectiveness. The evidence demonstrates that public school choice programs have the potential to improve school quality and reduce neighborhood-based disparities in educational opportunity.