Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The New York City Department of Education has made it a priority to increase academic diversity. A fundamental question for policymakers to consider is whether students of differing preparation levels are affected equally by offers to the same schools. Educational Option programs in NYC make 50% of their high school offers to students through a screening process and 50% through lotteries. New York City is thinking of expanding this assignment mechanism to more schools. I use lottery assignment to estimate the effect of school offers on well-prepared marginal screen students. I use lottery assignment to estimate the effect of the same school offers on relatively less prepared lottery students far away from the cutoff. I find that students are affected similarly by school offers regardless of whether they are marginal screened students or students far away from the cutoff.