Increasing Access to Selective High Schools through Place-Based Affirmative Action: Unintended Consequences
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
vol. 12,
no. 4, October 2020
(pp. 135-63)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
We investigate whether elite Chicago public high schools differentially benefit high-achieving students from more and less affluent neighborhoods. Chicago's place-based affirmative action policy allocates seats based on achievement and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES). Using regression discontinuity design (RDD), we find that these schools do not raise test scores overall, but students are generally more positive about their high school experiences. For students from low-SES neighborhoods, we estimate negative effects on grades and the probability of attending a selective college. We present suggestive evidence that these findings for students from low-SES neighborhoods are driven by the negative effect of relative achievement ranking.Citation
Barrow, Lisa, Lauren Sartain, and Marisa de la Torre. 2020. "Increasing Access to Selective High Schools through Place-Based Affirmative Action: Unintended Consequences." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 12 (4): 135-63. DOI: 10.1257/app.20170599Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- H75 State and Local Government: Health; Education; Welfare; Public Pensions
- I21 Analysis of Education
- I24 Education and Inequality
- I28 Education: Government Policy
- R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics
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