School choice

Alumni

Tamara W. Linkow

Principle Associate, Division of Social and Economic Policy

Tamara Linkow has 11 years of experience conducting quantitative and qualitative educational research and evaluation. She has played leadership roles on studies using both experimental and quasi-experimental methods. She has worked for federal…

News

Musaddiq details driving factors of school enrollment drops

Oct 7, 2021

Ford School postdoctoral fellow Tareena Musaddiq explains findings from a recent Education Policy Initiative working paper about the pandemic's effects on school enrollment and its consequences in The Conversation. Musaddiq writes that the large...

Musaddiq details driving factors of school enrollment drops

Publication

EPI study offers deeper dive into demand for educational choices, implications for schools during pandemic

Sep 9, 2021

As school districts consider their options in light of the recent surge in COVID-19 cases, a study by the Education Policy Initiative shows they need to be flexible in offering both in-person and virtual options or risk losing more enrollees. The...

EPI study offers deeper dive into demand for educational choices, implications for schools during pandemic

EPI Working papers

The Pandemic's Effect on Demand for Public Schools, Homeschooling, and Private Schools

September 1, 2021

Tareena Musaddiq, Kevin Stange, Andrew Bacher-Hicks, Joshua Goodman

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically disrupted the functioning of U.S. public schools, potentially changing the relative appeal of alternatives such as homeschooling and private schools. Using student-level administrative data from Michigan and...

Teacher and students in class wearing masks

EPI Policy briefs

The Pandemic's Effect on Demand for Public Schools, Homeschooling, and Private Schools

September 1, 2021

Tareena Musaddiq, Kevin Stange, Andrew Bacher-Hicks, Joshua Goodman

EPI Working papers

Closing the Gap: The Effect of a Targeted, Tuition-Free Promise on College Choices of High Achieving, Low-Income Students

December 1, 2018

Susan Dynarski, Katherine Michelmore, Stephanie Owen, CJ Labissi

Low-income students, even those with strong academic credentials, are unlikely to attend a highly selective college. With a field experiment, we test an intervention to increase enrollment of low-income students at the highly selective University of...

The University of Michigan's Hail Scholarship

EPI Working papers

Cheaper by the Dozen: Using Sibling Discounts at Catholic Schools to Estimate the Price Elasticity of Private School Attendance

October 1, 2009

Susan Dynarski, Jonathan Gruber, Danielle Li

The effect of vouchers on sorting between private and public schools depends upon the price elasticity of demand for private schooling. Estimating this elasticity is empirically challenging because prices and quantities are jointly determined in the...

EPI Working papers

Is Gaining Access to Selective Elementary Schools Gaining Ground? Evidence from Randomized Lotteries

September 1, 2007

Brian Jacob, Julie Berry Cullen

In this paper, we examine whether expanded access to sought-after schools can improve academic achievement. The setting we study is the "open enrollment" system in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). We use lottery data to avoid the critical issue of...

Young child completing a written assignment

EPI Working papers

The Effect of School Choice on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries

November 1, 2003

Brian Jacob, Julie Berry Cullen, Steven Levitt

School choice has become an increasingly prominent strategy for enhancing academic achievement. Evaluating the impact of such programs is complicated by the fact that a highly select sample of students takes advantage of these programs. To overcome...

Student walking down a hallway at school

EPI Working papers

The Impact of School Choice on Student Outcomes: An Analysis of the Chicago Public Schools

September 1, 2000

Brian Jacob, Julie Berry Cullen , Steven Levitt

We explore the impact of school choice on student outcomes in the context of open enrollment within the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Roughly half of the students opt out of their assigned high school to attend a different CPS school, and these...

Postsecondary preparation & success

Understanding Geographic Differences in Postsecondary Decision Making and Financial Aid Interventions

January 2021

Susan Dynarski, Elizabeth Burland, Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija, Stefanie DeLuca, Katherine Michelmore

This study gathers and analyzes data from qualitative interviews with high school students in Michigan. These interviews ask students to describe their college decision making process and to what extent financial aid programs or interventions were effective at influencing their postsecondary decisions. The information gathered through this project provides vital insight, directly from the student perspective, on how financial aid interventions work and who they work for. Moreover, this project sheds light on the link between postsecondary inequality and student decision-making. Finally, the...

A block M on the ground on University of Michigan's campus

Rucker Johnson: Why School Integration Works

Apr 17, 2019 1:15:49

Rucker Johnson talks about his new book "Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works" April, 2019.

Future of education in Detroit: A panel discussion

Oct 23, 2014 1:19:42

Over the last decade, K-12 education in Detroit has undergone unprecedented change with the establishment of the Education Achievement Authority in 2012, the surge of charter school enrollment, and the influence