Value (mathematics)

Test (biology)

Attendance

Construct (python library)

Peer effects

Mathematics

Economic growth

Biology

Statistics

Epistemology

Philosophy

Paleontology

Artificial intelligence

Psychology

Economics

Programming language

Productivity

Geometry

Quality (philosophy)

School choice

Graduation (instrument)

Computer science

Market economy

Social psychology

Selection (genetic algorithm)

American Economic Review

School choice may lead to improvements in school productivity if parents’ choices reward effective schools and punish ineffective ones. This mechanism requires parents to choose schools based on causal effectiveness rather than peer characteristics. We study relationships among parent preferences, peer quality, and causal effects on outcomes for applicants to New York City’s centralized high school assignment mechanism. We use applicants’ rank-ordered choice lists to measure preferences and to construct selection-corrected estimates of treatment effects on test scores, high school graduation, college attendance, and college quality. Parents prefer schools that enroll high-achieving peers, and these schools generate larger improvements in short- and long-run student outcomes. Preferences are unrelated to school effectiveness and academic match quality after controlling for peer quality. (JEL D12, H75, I21, I26, I28)

Do Parents Value School Effectiveness?