School Choice Adoption Patterns: Documenting Large Parental and School Noncompliant Behavior in Chile

• In Event: Innovations and Challenges in School Choice and Educational Equity: A Global Perspective

Abstract

Centralized School admissions systems (SAS) often coexist with alternative and discouraged paths to enrollment. We study the behavior of parents and schools within the Chilean SAS, in which only 54.5% of the admissions are assigned by the SAS. We describe three types of enrollment exceptions: students who did not use the SAS (32.7% of admissions); students who used the SAS but abandoned the process (2.1%); and students who used the SAS and obtained an assignment but rejected it (10.7%). We characterize student and school profiles in terms of their non-compliant behavior. Our results suggest that the large incidence of enrollment exceptions may play a significant role by not being accounted for in current research on the effects of SAS.

Authors

• Patricio Rodriguez, Universidad de Chile

• Alexis Villanueva, Universidad de Chile

• Joaquin Esteban Farina, Harvard University

• Leonel Huerta, Universidad de Chile

• Juan Pablo Valenzuela, Universidad de Chile

• Lioubov Dombrovskaia, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María