Does School Choice Increase School Quality?

2003/05/01 by George M. Holmes, Jeff DeSimone, Nicholas G. Rupp · 83 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Psychology · #School Choice and Performance #Local Government Finance and Decentralization #Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth #Quality (philosophy) #School choice #Mathematics education #Psychology #Political science #Physics #Law

paper · doi:10.3386/w9683

published in National Bureau of Economic Research

openalex publication_date 2003/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Federal "No Child Left Behind" legislation, which enables students of low-performing schools to exercise public school choice, exemplies a widespread belief that competing for students will spur public schools to higher achievement.We investigate how the introduction of school choice in North Carolina, via a dramatic increase in the number of charter schools across the state, affects the performance of traditional public schools on statewide tests.We find test score gains from competition that are robust to a variety of specifications.The introduction of charter school competition causes an approximate one percent increase in the score, which constitutes about one quarter of the average yearly growth.

Citations

• Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations
• A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures
• Does Competition Among Public Schools Benefit Students and Taxpayers?

Cited by

• Is Charter School Competition in California Improving the Performance of Traditional Public Schools?
• Charter schools in the United States [wikipedia]