Who Gets What in Education: Can School Matching Improve Student Achievement?

This paper by Blueprint Director Parag Pathak, Atila Abdulkadiroglu, and Christopher Walters examines two approaches to improving urban school systems: changing who gets to go to existing schools (reallocation) and restructuring school portfolios through closures and reconstitution (resource augmentation). Using data from New York City high schools, they estimate models of school effects allowing for both vertical school quality differences and horizontal student-specific match effects.