A Contest Without Winners: How Students Experience Competitive School Choice Policy

• In Event: Assessing School Choice Politics and Policy Through Historical, Sociological, and Philosophical Frameworks

Abstract

This paper considers youth experience of competitive school choice policy —that which occurs when school districts require students to compete for access to oversubscribed, high-performing public schools. While much is known about group patterns of school application and admission under competitive choice (e.g. Allensworth et al., 2017, Pew Charitable Trusts, 2017), less is known about what such policies mean in the lives of young people who encounter them. Further, competitive choice unfolds in cities, including New York, Kansas City, Houston and Philadelphia, where recent economic and demographic transformations have substantially contributed to economic inequality and heightened tensions over access to high-performing public schools (Cucchiara, 2013), raising questions about how such inequalities translate into admissions process outcomes.

Author

• Kate L. Phillippo, Loyola University Chicago