Education Working Paper No. 9  April 2005 The Effect of Residential School Choice on Public High School Graduation Rates Endnotes Ann Rayman and Ofelia Madrid, “Merger Law Could Target Small Districts,” Arizona Republic, December 3, 2003. Derek DePledge, “Democrats Ready for Final Votes on ‘Reinvent Education’ Bill,” Honolulu Advertiser, April 13, 2004. Matthew Pinzur, “School Idea Hits Nerve,” Miami Herald, December 11, 2003. See http://www.miedresearchoffice.org/opportunity.htm#_Number_of_students See “Use of School Choice,” Education Policy Issues: Statistical Perspectives,  n. 1, National Center for Education Statistics, June 1995, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs95/95742r.pdf Hoxby 2001. The graduation rates used in this study were reported in Greene and Winters 2005. See http://nces.ed.gov/ccd Calculations do not always sum due to rounding. See http://eire.census.gov/popest/estimates.php We were unable to calculate graduation rates between 1991 and 2000 in Arizona because, as we discovered after discussing it with the state’s Department of Education, the enrollment numbers that the state officially reported to the federal government during this period were incorrect. For state areas, see http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108355.html; for number of districts, see varying years of the Digest of Education Statistics, National Center of Education Statistics. Authors’ calculations using data from Greene and Winters 2005. Ibid. Alexa Aguilar and Kavita Kumor, “Tiny School Districts Feel Pressure to Merge,” St. Louis Post Dispatch, Illinois 5 Star Edition, February 20, 2005. Authors’ calculations using data from Greene and Winters, 2005. Ibid. DePledge, “Democrats Ready.” David M. Herszenhorn, “Charity Gives $51 Million to City to Start 67 Schools,” New York Times, September 18, 2003. For both of these data, see varying years of the Core of Common Data, http://nces.ed.gov/ccd Aguilar and Kumor, “Tiny School Districts Feel Pressure to Merge.” Ibid. Rayman and Madrid, “Merger Law Could Target Small Districts.”

EMAIL THIS | PRINTER FRIENDLY EWP 9 PDF (63 kb) WHAT THE PRESS SAID SUMMARY: This study finds that decreasing the size of school districts has a substantial and statistically significant positive effect on high school graduation rates, while consolidating school districts leads to more students dropping out of high school. The study indicates that decreasing the size of state's school districts by 200 square miles leads to an increase of about 1.7 percentage points in its graduation rate. The authors argue that these improvements occur because decreasing the size of school districts increases the choice that parents have in the school system that educates their child, which motivates public school districts to compete for students by providing a higher quality education. TABLE OF CONTENTS: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ABOUT THE AUTHORS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT EDUCATION WORKING PAPERS INTRODUCTION EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES AND INCREASING PARENTAL SCHOOL CHOICE CALCULATING GRADUATION RATES METHOD RESULTS CONCLUSION ENDNOTES REFERENCES Table 1: Average Square Miles/District by State Table 2: Relationship Between Increasing Average Square Miles of School Districts and Graduation Rates Table 3: Effect of Decreasing District Size to Benchmark Levels for Certain States Table 4: Effect of Increasing District Size to Benchmark Levels for Certain States