Guiding School-Choice Reform through Novel Applications of Operations Research

Peng Shi ()
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Peng Shi: MIT Operations Research Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

Interfaces, 2015, vol. 45, issue 2, 117-132

Abstract: In January 2012, Boston initiated a school-assignment reform. After attending several community meetings, I formulated the reform as an optimization problem of finding school-choice menus and priorities that induce the best combination of equity of access, proximity to home, predictability, and community cohesion. Using previous school-choice data, I fit a discrete choice model of how families select schools, and created a simulation engine that estimated a variety of outcome measures for any plan. I also proposed several new plans, and helped Boston Public Schools analyze a short list of plans in detail. In March 2013, Boston adopted one of these plans, which will affect the 9,500 children who apply to Boston elementary schools each year.

Keywords: education; public service; school choice; policy analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orinte:v:45:y:2015:i:2:p:117-132

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