"School Choice and Competitive Incentives: Mapping the Distribution of Educational Opportunities across Local Education Markets
Abstract
Competition sparked by school choice is expected to generate greater educational opportunities, particularly for disadvantaged students. The premise is that competitive incentives will change the organizational behavior of schools (and districts, dioceses, etc.) in ways that will lead to more equitable access for students across varied and often segregated urban landscapes. Drawing from theories of institutional environments and nonprofit firms, this analysis investigates patterns of access across three highly competitive local education markets to determine how school choices are arranged as options expand. The findings indicate that competitive incentives can have similar impacts on different types of organizations, but both policy variations and contextual factors such as demographic distributions may also play critical roles in shaping the market structures in which schools operate. Notably, all three cases showed patterns of exclusionary strategies that schools embraced to enhance market position.
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In cities like Baltimore, selective-enrollment, magnet, and charter schools are often located outside of highly disadvantaged neighborhoods, necessitating longer commutes for the disadvantaged students who are most likely to be taking public transportation.
“Second, in cities like Baltimore, selective-enrollment, magnet, and charter schools are often located outside of highly disadvantaged neighborhoods, necessitating longer commutes for the disadvantaged students who are most likely to be taking public transportation (Burdick-Will, Keels, and Shuble 2013;Lubienski, Gulosino, and Weitzel 2009;Stein et al. 2017).”
From Danger on the way to school: exposure to violent crime, public transportation, and absenteeism (2019) · cites this paper as Lubienski, Gulosino, and Weitzel 2009
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Burdick-Will, J., Keels, M., & Schuble, T. (2013) · Journal of Urban Affairs · doi:10.1111/juaf.12004 · Cited by 87 · see citing works
Danger on the way to school: exposure to violent crime, public transportation, and absenteeism
Burdick-Will, J., Stein, M., & Grigg, J. (2019) · Sociological Science · doi:10.15195/v6.a5 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
“…enrollment, magnet, and charter schools are often located outside of highly disadvantaged neighborhoods, necessitating longer commutes for the disadvantaged students who are most likely to be taking public transportation (Stein et al., 2017; Burdick-Will et al., 2013; Lubienski et al., 2009).”
BackgroundBurdick-Will, J. (2017) · American Journal of Education · doi:10.1086/693958 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lubienski, C., Gulosino, C., & Weitzel, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Brown University (US)
- Venue
- American Journal of Education
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 2009-08
- Volume
- 115
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 601-647
- ISSN
- 0195-6744 (ISSN-L)
- 1549-6511
- OpenAlex
- W2159329243
- Cited by
- 264
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 33 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 34.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- American Journal of Education (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Social Sciences › Education › Diverse Education Studies and Reforms
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Educational Assessment and Improvement
- Keywords
- school choice, competition in education, educational opportunities, educational equity, disadvantaged students, institutional environment
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