Urban Research Initiative: Shopping for Schools

城市研究计划：购买学校

• 批准号: 9817790
• 负责人: Mark Schneider
• 金额: $ 28.57万
• 依托单位: SUNY at Stony Brook
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-02-01 至 2003-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9817790&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Urban; Research; Initiative; Shopping; Schools

This research investigation, supported under the Urban Research Initiative, deals with a central issue of American school systems: school choice. School choice has become a central tool in attempts to improve education and provide options to low-income parents. But critics argue that because information about schools is difficult to obtain and hard to interpret, low-income parents, if given choice, will not choose well if they choose at all. Many studies, beginning with those on the Alum Rock demonstration school choice program, have found that parents usually know very little about the alternatives available to them - - and this is especially true for minorities and lower SES parents. Indeed, one group has argued that the low level of parent information is the "Achilles Heel" of choice plans.School choice seeks to improve schools by introducing market-like reforms into an historical arrangement in which centralized school bureaucracies determined which schools children attended and in a system where parental input was minimal. Many analysts have argued that in this monopoly-like situation, schools have no reason to perform well. Choice, according to its proponents, will create a more competitive market for education, unleashing pressure on the schools to perform better.But markets require information to function well. Seizing on this well-known fact, critics of choice argue that education is a complex good, difficult to describe in a way that people understand, and that less-educated parents (who can probably benefit most from choice) are the least able to access and analyze information. In turn, given the lack of good information in the hands of "parent/consumers," the success of choice reforms is unlikely.Working with two stakeholder groups with considerable experience working with both public and charter schools in Washington, DC, the research team investigates how school choice embodied in the creation of charter schools in Washington, DC, affects parent behavior. In addition, the researchers use modern technology to provide a low-cost way of providing information on education choices to a population of inner-city parents. The researchers assess the effects of these lower information costs on parent choice behavior, and develop a knowledge base on how to disseminate school information effectively and efficiently.This study addresses directly one of the main objections raised by critics of choice who argue that, because of the costs of information, even if choice works it will help those who are better off rather than the poor.

这项由城市研究计划支持的研究调查涉及美国学校系统的一个核心问题：学校选择。学校选择已成为改善教育和为低收入父母提供选择的核心工具。但批评人士认为，由于有关学校的信息很难获得，也很难解释，如果让低收入父母选择，他们根本不会做出好的选择。许多研究发现，家长通常对可供选择的其他学校知之甚少--尤其是对少数族裔和社会保障水平较低的家长而言。事实上，有一群人认为，家长信息的低水平是择校计划的“阿喀琉斯之踵”。择校寻求通过将类似市场的改革引入到一种历史安排中来改善学校，在这种安排中，中央学校官僚机构决定孩子上哪些学校，而且家长的投入最少。许多分析人士认为，在这种类似垄断的情况下，学校没有理由表现出色。根据其支持者的说法，CHOICE将为教育创造一个竞争更激烈的市场，释放出要求学校表现更好的压力。但市场需要信息才能正常运行。利用这一众所周知的事实，选择的批评者认为，教育是一种复杂的善，很难用人们理解的方式来描述，受教育程度较低的父母(他们可能从选择中受益最多)获取和分析信息的能力最差。反过来，鉴于“家长/消费者”手中缺乏良好的信息，选择改革的成功是不太可能的。研究小组与两个与华盛顿特区公立学校和特许学校都有丰富经验的利益相关者团体合作，调查了华盛顿特区特许学校创建过程中体现的学校选择如何影响家长行为。此外，研究人员使用现代技术提供一种低成本的方式，向市中心的父母提供有关教育选择的信息。研究人员评估了这些较低的信息成本对家长选择行为的影响，并开发了一个关于如何有效和高效地传播学校信息的知识库。这项研究直接解决了批评选择的人提出的主要反对意见之一，他们认为，由于信息的成本，即使选择奏效，也会帮助那些富裕的人，而不是穷人。