Maintaining an Edge: How School Districts Respond to Competition

Often the complexity of social issues leads to a reliance on highly circulated anecdotes or narratives that individuals use to package their positions for a wider audience. These narratives certainly carry benefits in narrowing the field of debate to some of the more pivotal aspects. Problematically, however, such anecdotes may privilege certain actors and outcomes at the expense of others. In the ongoing debate over school choice, prevailing narratives center on a student’s choice of schools and how these decisions benefit pupils individually through increased engagement and opportunity.

A recent paper by David Welsch and David Zimmer does not challenge these narratives, but shifts the focal points in the analysis of school choice. Rather than examining the direct link between student outcomes as a result of choice, the study outlined in “Do Student Migrations Affect School Performance? Evidence from Wisconsin’s Inter-District Public School Program,” explores the effects of student mobility through choice programs on schools themselves. This analysis does not detract from an understanding that choice may benefit students, but explores the increase in school quality through competition as a potential benefit extending beyond those doing the choosing.

To test whether district quality improves in the presence of school choice, Welsch and Zimmer examine Wisconsin’s Open Enrollment Program, a school choice program implemented in 1998. Under the guidelines of the program, families can request to transfer children outside of their home districts, thereby sending the statewide average funding allotted per pupil to other competing schools. As imagined, competition among schools increases alongside student choice as districts attempt to market themselves to the up to 28,000 students considering transfers. The authors acknowledge that district marketing may have more to do with maintaining appeal for the home population than attracting migratory students.

One method for maintaining appeal to students involves the bolstering of test scores, which, in theory, holds considerable sway over the decisions of families. To measure this appeal, Welsch and Zimmer examine the percentage of fourth, eighth, and tenth grade students that score advanced or proficient on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE). The authors further collect information to formulate a GPA-like measure for district-wide performance in order to track how schools respond to the migration of students through the choice program. In the authors’ assessment, improvements in test scores, following large-scale migration away from certain districts, will signal whether these districts can and do increase their quality when experiencing competitive pressure.

Looking at all districts involved in the program, Welsch and Zimmer note that a five percent flight in student population correlates with a four percent to seven percent increase in test scores in the following year. With this correlation most pronounced in those districts where the amount of leaving students made up a larger percentage of the student population, evidence indicates that those school districts experiencing the most pressure also achieve the largest improvements in test scores. Welsch and Zimmer do not cite the migration of poorly performing students as a factor, but affirm the program’s effectiveness in advancing school quality. This assessment corroborates data showing that although a majority of school districts experienced gains in scores from the beginning of the choice program, those with more bordering districts (and more competition) saw the largest gains two years later.

With these results, Welsch and Zimmer’s analysis tweaks the prevailing narrative about students moving to better schools and directly improving themselves. Certainly, these incidents occur and attract attention, but they do not highlight the spectrum of changes that choice programs may incite. By creating a competitive climate where school districts contend for migratory students by increasing quality, choice programs benefit even those students that never consider leaving. Admittedly, Welsch and Zimmer make no claims to whether these benefits outweigh the costs of implementation, but policy decisions moving forward must account for the spectrum of successes of Wisconsin’s Open Enrollment Program.

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