Nationwide Audit Study of School Choice Responses to Fictitious Parents

A nationwide audit study tested school choice access by sending emails from fictitious parents to 6,452 charter and traditional public schools in 29 states and Washington, D.C. The study, authored by Isaac McFarlin of Columbia University, measured response rates to inquiries signaling different student attributes. It found schools were less likely to respond to students with poor behavior, low achievement, or significant special needs.

Use Cases

• Analyzing differential response rates to student inquiries based on signaled attributes like special needs.
• Modeling the relationship between school type (charter vs. traditional public) and responsiveness to parents.
• Investigating potential barriers to access for students perceived as costlier to educate.
• Comparing school communication practices across a large geographic scale (29 states and D.C.).

Strengths

• Large-scale experimental design involving 6,452 schools.
• Broad geographic coverage across 29 states and Washington, D.C.
• Clear methodological description of a randomized audit study.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• The underlying data is closed license, limiting direct access and reproducibility.

Provenance

Source

Isaac McFarlin, Columbia University, via paperswithcode.

Collection Method

Audit study involving emails from fictitious parents to schools.

Geography

29 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.