School Availability and Choice

Vivien W. Chen, Pennsylvania State University
Suet-ling Pong, Pennsylvania State University
Tse-Chuan Yang, Pennsylvania State University

This study examines racial/ethnic differences in the propensity to exercise school choice, and how they differ according to the availability of schools. Previous literature finds significant effects of family’s accessibility to school and the availability of schools on school selection across racial and SES groups. However, the measures of available schools are often imperfect proxies. This study utilizes student information from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) and school information from the Common Core of Data (CCD) for 2001-2002, and the School District Data (SDDS) to map students’ home locations and locations of available schools surrounding students’ home. Spatial analysis and multinomial logistic regression are applied on the choice of six types of schools. We find significant racial/ethnic differences in school choice. Some types of school choice are more responsive to their availability than others.