In their new study, “Preferences, Information, and Parental Choice Behavior in Public School Choice,” Justine S. Hastings, Richard Van Weelden, and Jeffrey Weinstein conducted a field experiment in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School district to assess the effect of information on school choice preferences. The authors wanted to further examine the question of why low-income parents often place lower weights on academics when choosing schools.
They distributed a simple information sheet to parents, describing test scores and, in some cases, the odds of admissions for the schools of choice. They found that low-income parents were much more likely to choose a higher-performing schools when given this basic information. These parents changed their preferences, not because the information directed them to value test scores, but because it enabled them to act of their true preference for schools with higher test scores.
Critics of school choice argue that low-income parents do not have access to kind of resources that wealthier parents use to make decisions about school choice. This study points out that school systems can militate this effect by providing very basic information to low-income parents.
