Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

School choice policies aim to improve access to high-quality, desirable schools by allowing families to select the schools their children attend. New Orleans’ system of school choice has gone farther than most to expand access by: 1) eliminating guaranteed enrollment based on residential location, 2) offering citywide open enrollment on most campuses, and 3) requiring schools to provide “free and adequate” transportation to all students who live beyond walking distance. In theory, this gives students in all neighborhoods the chance to apply for enrollment in the city’s highest-performing schools. However, various obstacles could perpetuate inequalities in families’ opportunity to enroll in high-performing schools. These obstacles include uneven geographic distribution of high-performing schools, oversubscription in these schools with seating priority based on where students live, and a weak public transit system coupled with relatively low rates of car ownership.

While New Orleans has taken efforts to maximize school choice in theory, this study assesses limitations in school choice in practice. We examine associations between neighborhood characteristics (such as poverty and housing affordability) and access to high-performing schools. Bringing together an assortment of data—including block-level census data, transit time estimates, school bus routes, and school requests and placements—we show how various factors limit access to high-performing schools, particularly for families in poverty. Preliminary results suggest lingering neighborhood inequalities due to the continued concentration of higher-rated, high-demand schools in the city’s more affluent neighborhoods.