Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

To more equitably apportion the limited supply of high-quality educational opportunities in Washington D.C., authorities created a common lottery for public school enrollment in 2014. Known as My School DC, the lottery uses random assignment to ensure that those who participate have the same chance of getting placed in the city’s sought-after schools regardless of whether they live in low-income or more-affluent neighborhoods. Reporters, parents, and scholars have lauded this system for reducing enrollment costs associated with parents’ time and resources, information, and political connections that previously barred many low-income students from attending the city’s high-performing schools.

Still, the way for students to “win the lottery” may be to avoid playing it. Many of the city’s high-performing schools are located in affluent and predominantly white sections of the city and the system permits schools to privilege students who live in boundary or have siblings enrolled, while all students who reside outside of the schools' boundaries compete for few lottery-available seats at traditional public schools and a small number of seats at high-functioning charters.

This exploratory study contrasts the current functioning of the lottery with D.C.’s stated goal of enhancing educational equity. To gauge the impact of the lottery, I examine student characteristics in schools at different performance levels and analyze patterns of racial and SES segregation, as well as the number of students attending their most-local schools. The research draws on available scholarship, news reporting, and documents to appraise the equity potential of My School DC and posits possible changes to the decision-making architecture that might further diminish inequalities.

Using descriptive statistics, I find that white students make up a much larger segment of the enrollments in schools with the longest waitlists than their share of the overall DC public school population (5.9%) might suggest. Evidence also reveals that despite the lottery, the city’s academically struggling schools educate a much greater proportion of “at risk” or low-income students than the middle or higher performing schools. Additionally, the data show that students now embark on longer commutes to get their schools.

As it is currently constructed, the lottery operates on the false assumption that all students start from the same place and gain the same amount by getting a great education. Realistically, public schools have and continue to underserve low income and Black and Latinx students. OSSE’s recent plan to create an “at risk” student preference at a preschool is promising since it sets aside educational opportunities for those most in need. Drawing on Rawls’ theory of distributive justice, I propose additional ways in which policy makers might address student privilege and marginalization to modify My School DC in a manner that more accurately “levels the playing field.”