The Implications of School Lotteries for Neighborhood Crime
Andrew Bibler (University of Nevada, Las Vegas); Stephen Billings (University of Colorado Boulder); Stephen Ross (University of Connecticut)
Abstract
School choice lotteries are an important tool for increasing access to high quality public schools. There is strong evidence that high quality public schools have large academic and behavioral benefits due in large part to their peer environment (Deming 2011, Cullen, Jacob, and Levitt 2006). One element of school lotteries that has not been considered is how neighborhood peer relationships change as individuals are admitted to non-neighborhood schools. We examine the effect of school choice lotteries on the criminal activity of non-lottery students, estimating whether students are more or less likely to face future arrest if their neighborhood peers are admitted via lottery to a different school. We estimate the effects of peer displacement using three cohorts of rising middle school students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, comparing the outcomes for non-lottery students and using variation in the proportion of lottery applicants form their neighborhood who win the lottery to attend a different school.