Mapping Academic Achievement and Public School Choice Under the No Child Left Behind Legislation

2009 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haifeng (Charlie) Zhang ◽  
David J. Cowen
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Public School ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Public School Choice

scholarly journals Paying for School Choice: Availability Differences among Local Education Markets

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Lee
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Public School ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Housing Price ◽  
Access To Education ◽  
Underperforming Schools ◽  
The Public ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Public School Choice ◽  
Education Markets

On the grounds of the school zone discontinuity by parents’ educational level, housing price, and household income, empowering parents to choose children’s schools with their own hands has the potential to improve overall access to education by weakening geographical advantages, or disadvantages, and opening up invisible boundaries between communities. Though recent school choice proposals seem aligned with issues of access to education, little research has paid attention to potential access to and actual utilization of the federal government-initiated choice program in competitive markets. This paper explores whether or not the markets for the public school choice provision under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 are ready to serve students at chronically underperforming schools, by representing the geographic distribution of choice availability in a segregated metropolitan area. This study finds that the public school choice provision under the NCLB builds unequal choice settings between school districts.

SmartChoice: An Online Recommender System to Support Low-Income Families in Public School Choice

AI Magazine ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Wilson ◽  
Suzanne Leland ◽  
Kenneth Godwin ◽  
Andrew Baxter ◽  
Ashley Levy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Public School ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Recommender System ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Public School Choice ◽  
Low Income Families ◽  
Followup Studies

Public school choice at the primary and secondary levels is a keyelement of the U.S. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB).  If aschool does not meet assessment goals for two consecutive years, bylaw the district must offer students the opportunity to transfer to aschool that is meeting its goals.  Making a choice with such potentialimpact on a child's future is clearly monumental, yet astonishinglyfew parents take advantage of the opportunity.  Our research has shownthat a significant part of the problem arises from issues ininformation access and information overload, particularly for lowsocioeconomic status families.  Thus we have developed an online,content-based recommender system, called SmartChoice.  Itprovides parents with school recommendations for individual studentsbased on parents' preferences and students' needs, interests,abilities, and talents.  The first version of the online applicationwas deployed and live for focus group participants who used it for theJanuary and March/April 2008 Charlotte-Mecklenburg school choiceperiods.  This article describes the SmartChoice Program and theresults of our initial and followup studies with participants.

Stuck in School: How Social Context Shapes School Choice for Inner-City Students

2015 ◽  
Vol 117 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Barbara F. Condliffe ◽  
Melody L. Boyd ◽  
Stefanie Deluca
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Public School ◽  
School Choice ◽  
Inner City ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
Public School Choice

Background High school choice policies attempt to improve the educational outcomes of poor and minority students by allowing access to high school beyond neighborhood boundaries. These policies assume that given a choice, families will be able to select a school that supports their child's learning and promotes educational attainment. However, research on the effects of public school choice programs on the academic achievement of disadvantaged students is mixed, suggesting that families do not necessarily respond to these programs in ways that policymakers intend. Purpose The purpose of this article is to identify how family and neighborhood contexts interact with public school choice policies to shape the educational opportunities of inner-city students. Specifically, we ask: What criteria are used to choose schools? What are the implications of these school choice decisions for students’ future educational and occupational opportunities? Research Design We use data from interviews and fieldwork conducted with 118 low-income African American youth ages 15–24 who attended Baltimore City Public Schools at some point during their high school career. Research on school choice tends to rely on data from parents, and we offer a unique contribution by asking youth themselves about their experiences with school choice. Conclusions Although school choice policies assume that parents will guide youths’ decision about where to go to high school, the majority of youth in our sample were the primary decision makers in the high school choice process. Additionally, these youth made these choices under considerable constraints imposed by the district policy and by their family, peers, and academic background. As a result, the youth often selected a school within a very limited choice set and chose schools that did not necessarily maximize their educational opportunity. Our results demonstrate that school choice policies must take into account the social context in which educational decisions are made in order to maximize chances for students’ individual academic achievement and to decrease inequality by race and social class.

Are Students Left Behind? The Distributional Effects of the No Child Left Behind Act

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Krieg
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Public School ◽  
Panel Data ◽  
School Performance ◽  
Pass Rate ◽  
High Ability ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Distributional Effects ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
High Ability Students

The No Child Left Behind Act imposes sanctions on schools if the fraction of students demonstrating proficiency on a high-stakes test falls below a statewide pass rate. While the motivation behind this system is improved public school performance, it also provides incentives for schools to focus educational resources on the marginal student rather than those on the tails of the ability distribution. Using statewide, student-level panel data, students on the tails of the ability distribution, especially high-ability students, are demonstrated to score below expectations if their school is in danger from No Child Left Behind sanctions.

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