Parent’s Choice or School’s Choice? Discrimination Against Students in Admission to Private, Charter, and Traditional Public Schools

Researchers will conduct a nationwide audit correspondence field experiment of over 100,000 US K-12 public, charter, and private schools to quantify discrimination in admissions by race, ethnicity, disability, SES, and sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI). Private schools can legally discriminate, and the researchers will be the first to quantify whether they discriminate differently from public or charter schools. Researchers will email school administrators as mothers seeking to enroll their child and inquiring about the application process and fit, mimicking the information-gathering phase, which is crucial for access. These emails will be on average identical except signals of race or ethnicity (Black, Hispanic, Arab, White), SOGI, SES, and disability. Researchers quantify discrimination by comparing response rates and quality by group and school type. Researchers inform how to reduce discrimination by determining where and why discrimination occurs, revealing mechanisms, quantifying how numerous policies (e.g., anti-DEI, anti(pro)-LGBTQIA+ policies, vouchers) affect discrimination, and deriving best practices in responding to inquiries.