Choice and Policy Shocks in Minneapolis Public Schools

Two types of school choice exist: formal school choice programs and Tiebout choice. Tiebout choice is the choice parents exercise when they decide to purchase a house next to this school and not that school. Formal school choice programs, like Minneapolis\u27s The Choice is Yours, allow students to apply to any school in the district regardless of where they live. This paper uses boundary fixed effects to calculate how much parents are willing to pay to live next to specific schools in Minneapolis in 2009 and 2010 and finds that variance in home sale prices dependent on school attendance area nearly doubles. During this period, The Choice is Yours program was restricted and the district no longer provided transportation to students. Without the transportation option, the Choice is Yours was much less success- ful at promoting educational equity - ability to afford more expensive housing and ability to relocate became more important as determi- nants of where a child went to school