Education for All? A Nationwide Audit Study of School Choice

Abstract

School choice may allow schools to "cream skim" students perceived as easier to educate. To test this, we sent emails from fictitious parents to 6,452 schools in 29 states and Washington, D.C. The fictitious parent asked whether any student is eligible to apply to the school and how to apply. Each email signaled a randomly assigned attribute of the child. We find that schools are less likely to respond to inquiries from students with poor behavior, low achievement, or a special need. Lower response rates to students with a potentially significant special need are driven by charter schools. Otherwise, these results hold for traditional public schools in areas of school choice and high-value added schools.

Do schools discriminate against children with disabilities? A field experiment in Sweden

“…Our overall results reveal discrimination against children with ADHD and T1DM. The results are in line with findings from a field experiment in the US, which documented low response rates from schools to children with special needs (Bergman and McFarlin Jr 2020). The overall results in our study reveal an interesting pattern.…”

“…Hence, if children with disabilities are discriminated against when their parents search for school placements, it may lead to further segregation and have implications for their possibilities in the labor market later in life. Moreover, a field experiment conducted in the US showed that schools were less likely to respond to inquiries concerning students with significant special needs (Bergman and McFarlin Jr 2020). The question is whether common disabilities such as ADHD and T1DM also can lead to discrimination and if discrimination occurs against very young children.…”

Education privatization in the United States: Increasing saturation and segregation

“…Additionally, in an empirical related study, charters that did enroll Special Education students at rates similar to district averages had negative growth outcomes in both reading and math for both the general population and, more pronouncedly, for those enrolled in Special Education (Drame, 2010). While some research maintains that under-subscription is simply a product of fewer parent applications (Winters, 2014), a recent experimental study found that charter schools reduced responses to enrollment inquiries (significant at a p<0.01 level) when the inquiry noted the student was designated as special needs (Bergman & McFarlin, 2018).…”

School choice's idealized premises and unfulfilled promises: How school markets simulate options, encourage decoupling and deception, and deepen disadvantages

“…In an experimental audit study involving public choice systems located across 29 states and in D.C., researchers emailed inquiries about fictitious prospective students with individualized education plans for separate classroom instruction or a past record of poor behavior or low grades. Both traditional and charter schools were less responsive to these requests than to ones that did not indicate such needs (Bergman & McFarlin, 2018). Similarly, drawing on news media and federal General Accounting Office reports of charter schools' practices, Welner (2013) outlines how charter schools increase their odds of "success" (and thus organizational survival) through selection processes that discourage and exclude applicants who are transient, poor, immigrants, or high need.…”