The Effects of School Choice on Student Achievement: Evidence across the United States

This paper uses national data across the United States to analyze the effects of school choice on student achievement. Controlling for different individual, parent, and school characteristics, I explore whether students attending schools of choice (choosers) improve more than their traditional public school counterparts (non-choosers). I construct my own half-life variable to measure achievement in reading, math and general knowledge assessments. The results are mixed, depending on the tested subject and specific individual characteristics. For example, I find that choosers improve more than non-choosers on English assessments but less on Math and General Knowledge assessments. In regards to individual characteristics, female choosers do better than female non-choosers, while male and black choosers do worse than their male and black non-chooser counterparts. These mixed results suggest that the net effects of school choice are ambiguous