Houston studying effects of student growth data on parental school preferences

David Houston, Assistant Professor, Education Policy, and his collaborators are conducting a survey of school choice.

Specifically, the researchers want to know if distribution of different kinds of performance information affects parents’ school preferences.

For nearly every public school in the United States, the Stanford Education Data Archive provides estimates of average achievement (student academic performance at one point in time) and average growth (the rate of improvement in student academic performance over time).

Average growth is not only a better measure of school effectiveness than average achievement, it also has a weaker relationship with school demographics.

For this project, the researchers are using a nationally representative sample of 2,800 parents of children 0-12 and conducting a survey experiment in which participants are asked to select their preferred schools from a series of options.

All participants will receive demographic information for each school. In addition, some participants will be randomly assigned to receive achievement information and/or growth information for each school.

The researchers hypothesize that parents who receive growth information will rely more heavily on this indicator, and as a result, prefer less white and less affluent schools.

Houston received $28,200 from the Spencer Foundation for this project. Funding began in August 2020 and will end in late October 2021.

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