Dynamic Participation in Interdistrict Open Enrollment

Abstract

Interdistrict open enrollment is the nation's largest and most widespread school choice program, but our knowledge of these programs is limited. Drawing on 5 years of student-level data from the universe of public school attendees in Colorado, we perform a three-stage analysis to examine the dynamics of student participation in the state's interdistrict open enrollment program. First, we explore the characteristics of students who open enroll in a defined baseline year. Second, we analyze the characteristics of students who continue to participate in the program in subsequent years. Finally, we examine the characteristics of students who-conditional on not open enrolling in the defined-baseline year-choose to participate in the program in one or more subsequent years.

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Open Enrollment Decisions and Student Achievement Trajectories

“…Table presents the results from estimating Equation and they indicate that numerous observable student‐level characteristics are related to students’ continued open enrollment status. In particular, the results indicate that female students are more likely to continue open enrolling than their male counterparts while black and Hispanic students are significantly less likely to maintain open enrollment status than white students—this latter finding is consistent with the results in Lavery and Carlson (). Moreover, the results demonstrate that socioeconomically disadvantaged students are less likely to continue open enrolling than their more advantaged peers, while students classified as gifted and talented and those with individualized education plans (IEPs) are more likely to return to their district of residence than participants without those designations.…”

“…Based on a sample of observations from the year in which students were initially observed open enrolling we estimate a model that can be written as where the probability that student i residing in district d maintains open enrollment status O throughout the duration of the data is a function of a vector of student and family background characteristics S and a vector of characteristics of the student's district of residence D. Table 5 presents the results from estimating Equation (2) and they indicate that numerous observable student-level characteristics are related to students' continued open enrollment status. In particular, the results indicate that female students are more likely to continue open enrolling than their male counterparts while black and Hispanic students are significantly less likely to maintain open enrollment status than white students-this latter finding is consistent with the results in Lavery and Carlson (2015). Moreover, the results demonstrate that socioeconomically disadvantaged students are less likely to continue open enrolling than their more advantaged peers, while students classified as gifted and talented and those with individualized education plans (IEPs) are more likely to return to their district of residence than participants without those designations.…”

School Choice and Educational Stratification

“…Furthermore, echoing the findings of Wolf et al. (), the Lavery and Carlson () study finds students with special designations—English language learners, special needs, and gifted and talented—to be disproportionately unlikely to participate in the interdistrict choice program. Academically, the study finds open enrollers to have slightly higher reading scores, but slightly lower math scores, relative to nonparticipants.…”

“…Historically, the empirical literature on selection into school choice programs consisted primarily of studies conducted in the context of private school voucher programs (e.g., Campbell, West, & Peterson, ; Cowen, ; Figlio et al., ; Fleming et al., ; Howell, ; Howell & Peterson, ; Witte, ; Witte & Thorn, ; Wolf, Gutmann, Eissa, Puma, & Silverberg, ), but more recent analyses have contributed evidence from charter schools (Buckley & Schneider, ; Dee & Fu, ; Ni, ; Tuttle et al., ) and public school choice programs (Bifulco et al., ; Koedel, Betts, Rice, & Zau, ), including interdistrict open enrollment (Lavery & Carlson, ). As with any literature of this size and scope, singular studies often reach competing conclusions, but general trends do emerge.…”

“…Studies of other choice programs—particularly those focusing on charter schools—have produced similarly mixed findings regarding selection along racial, socioeconomic, and academic dimensions (Buckley & Schneider, ; Dee & Fu, ; Lacireno‐Paquet, Holyoke, Moser, & Henig, ; Ni, ; Tuttle et al., ). The only existing study of the selection effects of interdistrict choice programs was conducted in the context of Colorado's statewide program and finds program participants to be disproportionately black and ineligible to receive free‐ or reduced‐price lunch (Lavery & Carlson, ) . Furthermore, echoing the findings of Wolf et al.…”