When Public Acts like Private: The Failure of Estonia's School Choice Mechanism

Abstract

This article aims to show the segregating effect of the market-like matching of students and schools at the basic school level. The natural experiment case is Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The current school choice mechanism applied in this case is based on entrance tests. There are increasingly over-subscribed intra-catchment area public schools, where high reputations are reinforced by publicly reported league tables. The current mechanism has resulted in parental strategies of prep-schooling and the manipulation of addresses. Logistic regression results based on survey data assure that, under competitive entrance, families' educational strategies and background characteristics determine the success of admission to schools with good reputations. Understanding this heterogeneous strategic behaviour is important for the effective design of school choice mechanisms.

School Choice Research and Politics with Pierre Bourdieu: New Possibilities

“…The concept refers to the individual possession of cultural resources, artifacts, and practices, and researchers have applied it to elucidate why and how choosing a school has become a major struggle over the cultural space of the school, where children acquire certain types or qualities of education that correspond to their families’ class positions and aspirations. Although scholars emphasize that different resources, artifacts, and practices count as cultural capital in particular local and national contexts, they converge on the view that schools are key institutions for class reproduction, that is, why middle-class parents participate actively in school choice (English, 2009; Gaztambide-Fernández & Parekh, 2017; Jaeger, 2009; Poder & Lauri, 2014; Roda, 2017; Wettewa, 2016; Wu, 2012).…”

The Paradox of State-Funded Higher Education: Does the Winner Still Take It All?

“…Estonian HEIs are selective, and the threshold or quota-based admission is mostly based on State-standardised central exam scores. Although the basic school system is comprehensive and relatively equitable considering international comparisons, schools in the centres of the largest cities (Tallinn, Pärnu, Tartu) still triumph at the top, as parents are extensively making their school choices without any balancing central allocation mechanisms [48]. In addition to that reputational divide between selective and non-selective schools, there is a slight urban-rural divide in school performance in Estonia [49].…”

Does School Admission by Zoning Affect Educational Inequality? A Study of Family Background Effect in Estonia, Finland, and Sweden

“…Although legal amendments in 2010 have tried to increase the importance of proximity and siblings in school assignment, the current Estonian education system can be characterised as an unregulated choice model in terms of matching students and schools. This means that the avoidance of cream-skimming has not been implemented (Põder & Lauri, 2014a), while choice is enforced by public listings of schools (league tables) where selective schools fill top positions. Empirics from 2008 to 2011 (Põder & Lauri, 2014a) reveal that in the capital, Tallinn, more than half of all families have tried to get into these popular competitive schools (about 10 per cent% of all schools in Tallinn) and have sat entrance tests, although acceptance is strongly determined by FB.…”