In the fall of 1996, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) implemented a new accountability system that placed 20 percent of its schools on “probation.” Poor reading test scores made up the sole criterion for censure, and those scarlet-lettered schools were plastered on the front page of both Chicago newspapers. A new study by Peter Rich and Jennifer Jennings of NYU takes a look at enrollment changes in these “probation schools,” both before and after the imposition of the new accountability system. The authors attempt to determine if the addition of new information (“This school is not performing up to par”) motivated more or different school change decisions among families.
1996 may seem like ancient history to education reformers, but the study illustrates the perennial power of information to motivate school choice decisions. In 1996, CPS had (as it still does) an open enrollment policy that allows any family to choose any school in the district other than their assigned one, provided there is space available. Since the district provided no transportation to students either before or after the policy was imposed, that issue was moot. The number of schools and seats within the district also stayed the same. In other words, access to buildings remained unchanged after implementation of the probation system. The study’s methodology also controlled for the effect of other accountability-related tweaks that CPS made at the same time. The sole variable under study was the provision of information.
The new information was simple and binary. Schools were either on probation for poor reading scores, or they weren’t: no gradations of bad or good, no value-added information, and only minimal ideas of what changes would be made to try to improve the schools on probation. It was a far cry from today’s report card data extravaganzas and “scary” talk of automatic closure and parent triggers. The only new piece of data for CPS families in 1996 was the big red X of probation.
So what happened in light of this new information? Kids left probation schools in higher numbers after the probation designation than before it. Students attending schools that were placed on probation had 19.3 percent higher odds of transferring schools and 16.1 percent higher odds of leaving the district altogether in the summer following initial assignment. Unsurprisingly, higher-income students were more likely to leave the system—the researchers suppose that they went to private schools, but heading for the ‘burbs is just as likely.
Those students who stayed in CPS and moved from a probation school were no more likely to end up in non-probation schools (i.e., to upgrade) after the policy was implemented than before. Keeping in mind that the difference in quality between probation and non-probation schools could be very slim, the alarm set off by the new accountability system resulted mainly in lateral moves.
Does this mean that accountability-based choice was fatally flawed even before the NCLB era began? No, but it does show that a closed system is not the optimal way to go about using that particular tool. Without a mechanism to assist low-income families in leaving a low-performing district just like high-income families can (vouchers, inter-district open enrollment, ESAs), or a plethora of high-quality seats to transfer into (magnets, charters, STEM schools) just like those who can “work the system” have, bad news about school quality is simply bad news. In Chicago in 1996, families heard the alarm and did what they could. The results were not encouraging. In 2015, we know better. Information, options, and access must be part of the same system in order to truly leverage accountability into better outcomes for students.
SOURCE: Peter M. Rich and Jennifer L. Jennings, “Choice, Information, and Constrained Options: School Transfers in a Stratified Educational System,” American Sociological Review (September 2015).
