Recently, the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) released a brief that examines how various factors determine which high schools students prefer to attend.
In 2003–04, New York City public schools implemented a computer-based system that assigns middle school students to the city’s 691 high school programs. Students submit a list of up to twelve high school programs ranked in the order of preference; an algorithm that accounts for admission qualifications and seat availability assigns as many students as possible to their first-choice. The IBO used data from 2004–05 through 2011–12 to compare the programs students preferred to the graduation rates of those programs, student test scores, and the proficiency scores of NYC middle schools to see how school quality and student achievement influence student preferences.
Within the NYC public school system, there are seven types of high school programs a student can choose to attend. Each type varies in terms of how selective it is of the students it admits. Some, like fine arts programs, require students to audition before they are accepted. Others screen applicants by evaluating entrance essays, test scores, or attendance records. The least competitive programs usually admit students through a lottery where every applicant has an equal chance of being selected. The IBO found that there is much greater demand than seats available in the more selective high school programs, which regularly turn away qualified students.
The brief also looks at how individual student achievement affects which program students list as their first choice. Interestingly, the data show that lower-achieving students are admitted to their first-choice program at a higher rate than high-achieving students. Specifically, in 2011–12, 58 percent of lower-achieving students were admitted to their first choice, while only 53 percent of the highest-achieving students could say the same. This is due in part to the fact that the best students usually list programs with more competitive admissions processes as their first choice. Meanwhile, low-achieving students tend to gravitate toward those that have a relaxed screening process or no screening process at all. Consequently, they have a greater chance of being admitted to their first choice.
The IBO’s most surprising finding was the strong correlation between the performance level of the middle school a student attends and his or her high school preferences. Regardless of their individual performance level, students from lower-performing middle schools are less likely than students at higher-performing schools to select high-performing high school programs as their first choice. This suggests that high-performing students in mediocre middle schools seem less likely to even see the city’s best high schools as within their grasp, which is troubling. This finding remains consistent when applied to a variety of measures for school quality. For example, students from middle schools that perform well are more likely to select high schools with higher graduation rates than the high-achieving students from lower-performing middle schools.
Understanding New York City’s high school program selection process helps draw awareness to the divergences between the preferences of lower- and higher-achieving students. Although this report is limited in regards to providing specific information on every variable that may impact student choice, the information it gives on the impact of a small fraction of these variables should not be ignored. While the system is quite effective at assigning the majority of students to their first-choice school, it is discouraging that students from lower-performing middle schools are less likely to show interest in attending—and perhaps see themselves as qualified for—more selective and better quality programs. To counter this, New York City school districts should consider ways to make information about highly selective programs more accessible to students attending lower-performing middle schools. Providing such resources will hopefully lead to an increased interest in more competitive high school programs, particularly among high-achievers at struggling schools.
SOURCE: Przemyslaw Nowaczyk and Joydeep Roy, “Preferences and Outcomes: A Look at New York City’s Public High School Choice Process,” New York City Independent Budget Office (October 2016).
