三十多年了, centralized school-choice programs have been touted as a means to equalize access to high-performing schools across racial and income groups. But a study by 电子游戏软件 economist 马里亚纳Laverde finds that such a system has had limited success in promoting educational equality in Boston Public Schools.
Laverde, 在不列颠哥伦比亚省读二年级的助理教授, found that white pre-kindergarten children are more likely to be assigned to higher-achieving schools than Black and Hispanic students. 此外, the study points out that cross-race school achievement gaps under the BPS choice system are no lower than would be the case if students were assigned to schools on the basis of their neighborhood of residence.
经济学助理教授马里亚纳Laverde(摄影:Lee Pellegrini)
While it may seem a discouraging revelation for a school system in the midst of considerable turmoil—BPS narrowly avoided a state takeover this past summer and hired its fifth superintendent in 10 years—the study’s results point to a larger issue hardly specific to Boston, 拉弗德说, 电子游戏正规平台教育经济学和应用市场设计.
“因为择校计划使社区和学校脱节, 理论是这样的, 这将减少学校系统中的种族隔离, 提高学校与学生的匹配质量, and also make the system’s high-quality schools accessible to children from under-represented groups,她解释道. 根据分析, the impact of choice systems in equalizing access to high-performing schools is limited, for reasons that may not be readily apparent or are beyond the capacity of the school-choice program to address.
“选择有很多好处, 但显然我们不能假设基于选择的系统能够解决所有问题.”
对于Laverde, BPS的电子游戏正规平台代表了市场设计的经典应用, 关注特定市场的发展和行为的一门学科, 尤其是那些在典型的金融基础场景之外运作的公司. 例如, 在私立教育中, the amount of tuition a student is able or willing to pay is a key determinant in what school he or she attends. 但是考虑到公共教育是免费的, 她说, “我们如何决定哪个学生去哪所学校? How do we set the assignment rules for this market in such a way as to make everyone as happy as possible?”
One option is to uniformly assign children to schools that are closest to their neighborhoods, 说Laverde. Among the advantages of this system are a short travel from home to school for students and a reinforced sense of community among the families in the district. But neighborhood-assigned schools tend to replicate residential segregation and perpetuate educational inequality, 拉弗德指出, 这与法律赋予他们的使命背道而驰.
在理论上, a choice-based system—where families are asked to rank their school preferences—will reduce segregation within the given school system while enabling students from lower-income households, 他们往往是黑人或西班牙人, 进入高水平的学校. 那么，为什么波士顿公立学校没有出现这种情况呢?
A key factor in parental preferences for their children’s school—in Boston and elsewhere—is its proximity to home. Some parents may not have flexible schedules that allow them to take their children to schools farther away, 或者可能担心他们的孩子在校车上的通勤时间更长. 对于这些父母来说, 说Laverde, a lower-achieving school that is closer may be preferable than a more distant higher-achieving school—and given that these parents tend to be low-income and Black or Hispanic, 这必然会造成进入这类学校的跨种族差距, 就像英伦管架公司的情况一样.
Even though the system prioritizes students for assignment based on their proximity to schools, 白人学生往往住得离高水平学校更近, the assignment algorithm does not contribute in a meaningful way to the observed gap, Laverde发现.
根据分析, the impact of choice systems in equalizing access to high-performing schools is limited, for reasons that may not be readily apparent or are beyond the capacity of the school-choice program to address. 选择有很多好处, 但显然我们不能假设基于选择的系统能够解决所有问题.”
Analyzing data from families’ school-choice applications and DOE statistics on school characteristics from 2010 to 2013, Laverde constructed different models to identify possible factors affecting access to high-performing schools. 在学生居住位置发生变化的模型中(例如, if Black or Hispanic students lived in neighborhoods near high-achieving schools), the gap in school achievement between minority and white students was reduced by about 50 percent. Eliminating the proximity priorities and the school choice menu restrictions had a negligible impact on distribution of school achievement by race, 哪些规则不是造成差距的重要因素, pointed to longer home-school distances as the main cause for differences in access between minority and white students, Laverde说.
“这里有重要的政策含义，”她说. “Even though choice systems give all families the option to sort into the city’s best schools, gaps in access to high-achieving schools will persist if families face different costs in accessing those schools. This also implies that competitive pressures within the school system are lowered, 降低全系统质量改进的潜力.”
Laverde指出，她的电子游戏正规平台范围是有限的. 它没有预测如何, 或者,如果, access to high-achieving schools would be different if school locations changed 或者,如果 the achievement level at a particular school were to increase. Neither scenario can predict families’ housing choices and their demand for the hypothetical school, 她解释说, which will determine the equilibrium distribution of distance to high-achieving schools by race.
Nor is the study intended to imply a deliberate or conscious effort to shortchange equal access to high-performing schools, Laverde说: It is simply a lens onto the “market” of school choice as it pertains to BPS.
“没有任何具体的迹象表明英伦管架有限公司存在缺陷. 底线是, 即使是在选择制度下, some of the residential segregation patterns will permeate the school assignment. The idea that school districts are solely responsible for solving segregation and inequality in schools is erroneous. 而不是, these policy objectives should include the joint effort of housing and transportation authorities, 举几个例子.”
肖恩·史密斯|大学传播| 2022年11月