Caroline Hoxby continues her research on the economic benefits of school choice. (via RCinProv’s top secret class blog.)
Her latest study maintains that the cities with a large number of school districts closely resembles a system of choice. How do you find cities with a large numbers of districts? Count them? Nah. First you see which cities have the most streams, because lots of streams = lots of districts. Huh? Sounds like Freakonomics gone bad.
Read more at the Lowest Deep and this Wall Street Journal article.
Apt. 11d 
Thanks for keeping it top secret. And, I promise: there will be no investigation into this leak!
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Fitzmas is coming to Providence. No secrets allowed.
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Sorry to jump in late, but it actually makes some sense.
What you’re trying to separate out is “lots of districts with easy mobility among districts” vs “lots of districts, but not easy to move among districts (district lines drawn along class, race, or income lines)”. The assumption/guess was that district lines drawn for geographical reasons would be less tied to race/class issues than others.
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Thanks, Sam. My main reference point for urban schools is always New York City, which is probably not the norm and probably why I don’t get her study. In New York, there is very little mobility right now even within districts because the cost of real estate and rent prices are so high. If you have a rent controlled apartment, you aren’t moving even across the hallway, because that could mean another $1,000 in rent.
Also, in NYC there has always been a high level of choice across districts. It does involve some research and legwork, which is why the middle class has primarily taken advantage of it. They are starting to cut back on these programs though. A pre and post study of interdistrict choice in NYC would be interesting.
I do think that looking at choice within cities is interesting, but I was just questioning the methodology.
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