The Pathway to Enrolling in a High-Performance High School: Understanding Barriers to Access

Lauren Sartain and Lisa Barrow

Education Finance and Policy, 2022, vol. 17, issue 3, 379-407

Abstract: In 2017, Chicago Public Schools adopted an online universal application system for all high schools with the hope of providing more equitable access to high-performance schools. Despite the new system, black students and students living in low socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods remained less likely than their peers to enroll in a high-performance high school. In this paper, we characterize various constraints that students and families may face in enrolling in a high-performance high school, including eligibility to programs based on prior academic achievement, distance from high-performance options, elementary school performance ratings, and neighborhood SES. After adjusting for differences in these access factors, we find the gap between black and Latinx students' likelihood of enrolling in a high-performing high school is reduced by about 80 percent. We find a similarly large reduction in the enrollment gap between students from low and middle SES neighborhoods after adjusting for eligibility and distance factors. These findings have implications for policies that may help equalize access to high-performance schools through changes to eligibility requirements and improved transportation options.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00349
Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Pathway to Enrolling in a High-Performance High School: Understanding Barriers to Access (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:17:y:2022:i:3:p:379-407

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1557-3060

Access Statistics for this article

Education Finance and Policy is currently edited by Stephanie Riegg Cellini and Randall Reback

More articles in Education Finance and Policy from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().