Use school lotteries as a research design for estimating impacts of schools of choice on student outcomes¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 2 claims (1 for, 1 mixed) · 1 study (1 associational), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 2 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The article offers lessons for researchers who use lottery-based designs, stating that schools' admission lotteries can be used "to estimate impacts of schools on student outcomes." Because oversubscribed schools allocate seats by lottery, applicants who win and lose the lottery provide comparison groups, and the article distills practical lessons from a national study for implementing this approach.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• The school must be oversubscribed so that a lottery determines admission.

Constraints¶

• Lottery-based research carries challenges the article documents from its national evaluation experience.

Target Learners¶

• students attending or applying to schools of choice

Target Learning Goals¶

• estimating the impact of attending a school of choice on student outcomes

Claims¶

• Oversubscription is prevalent among charter middle schools, enabling lottery-based evaluation [+W]
• Oversubscribed charter middle schools differ in features from charter schools that are not oversubscribed [~W]

Related Strategies¶

• Document the lotteries schools of choice conduct and their waiting-list admission procedures
• Use school admissions lotteries as randomized experiments to estimate long-term civic outcomes

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Christina Clark Tuttle, Philip Gleason, Melissa Clark. (2011). Using Lotteries to Evaluate Schools of Choice: Evidence from a National Study of Charter Schools. Economics of Education Review, vol. 31, issue 2. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/using-lotteries-to-evaluate-schools-of-choice-evidence-from-a-national-study-of-charter-schools