PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Valant, Jon
AU  - Walker, Brigham
TI  - Setting Priorities in School Choice
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.0124-13347R2
DP  - 2025 Oct 08
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 0124-13347R2
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2025/10/02/jhr.0124-13347R2.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2025/10/02/jhr.0124-13347R2.full
AB  - Even in cities with expansive school choice reforms, historically disadvantaged groups of students enroll in substantially lower-performing schools than their peers. We examine this phenomenon in New Orleans, focusing on the applications that families submit and the placements that result. We find large gaps in the types of schools that families request. Additionally, when Black and White (and poor and nonpoor) families request the same first-choice school for kindergarten, White and nonpoor families are more likely to receive those placements. This results from student priorities in the system’s placement algorithm. We examine these priorities and simulate placements under different policies.