Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Part of the logic of school choice is that parents will carefully review their educational options and choose programs that suit their children well. However, this assumes that parents are reasonably well informed. In reality, navigating a school choice process is difficult, with challenges to being informed about both the choice process and the individual programs available.

We conducted a series of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in New Orleans to assess the effects of providing information to parents. For the first RCT, we communicated with low-income applicants for early childhood seats when they had to provide paperwork, in person, to verify eligibility for seats they had requested. Applicants were assigned to receive either: the district’s typical communications (primarily emails), typical outreach plus formal text message guidance about verification, or typical outreach plus informal, friendly text message guidance. We found that sending text messages, irrespective of their formality, increased verification rates by about 12%. For a second RCT, we provided information to potential pre-K, kindergarten, and 9th grade applicants before they submitted school requests. Applicants were assigned to receive mailers, text messages, and emails that provided either: reminders about application deadline, deadline reminders plus lists of the highest-performing schools available (by growth), or deadline reminders plus lists of the programs near one’s home. We are assessing the effects of this intervention on applicants' school requests.