School Quality Gaps and School Segregation: Experimental Evidence from Los Angeles

Last registered on January 23, 2024
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
School Quality Gaps and School Segregation: Experimental Evidence from Los Angeles
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0012878
Initial registration date
January 22, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 23, 2024, 1:15 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
United States of America
Region
Los Angeles

Primary Investigator

Name
Christopher Campos
Affiliation
University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2022-09-01
End date
2025-12-01
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
Schoo quality, segregation, school choice
JEL code(s)
I20, I21
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
What are the implications of widely available school quality information on school enrollment segregation? We conduct a randomized information provision experiment in Los Angeles to answer this question. We provide information about schools' incoming achievement---a measure of peer quality---and a schools' achievement growth---a measure of a school's causal contribution to student learning and assess how this information affects families' interaction with various choice programs, their application behavior, and school enrollment segregation.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Campos, Christopher. 2024. "School Quality Gaps and School Segregation: Experimental Evidence from Los Angeles." AEA RCT Registry. January 23. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12878-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We provide information about schools' incoming achievement---a measure of peer quality---and a school's achievement growth---a measure of a school's causal contribution to student learning and assess how this information affects families' interaction with various choice programs, their application behavior, and school enrollment segregation.
Intervention Start Date
2022-09-01
Intervention End Date
2023-12-15

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Interactions with choice system, application behavior, enrolled school attributes, student achievement, non-cognitive outcomes
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
For enrolled school attributes emphasizing segregation or diversity, we consider Herfindahl indices and dissimilarity indices.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We consider cohorts of second, fifth, and eighth-grade students for the intervention and cross-randomize information treatments at the school level. In particular, treated families receive semi-personalized lists of information through the mail and on an interactive webpage.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
School-level randomization done by a computer
Randomization Unit
School
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1075
Sample size: planned number of observations
92,000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
275 schools receiving peer quality, 275 schools receiving school quality, 248 receiving both
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Standard deviation= 0.1SD
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
UC Berkeley
IRB Approval Date
2019-09-11
IRB Approval Number
2019-05-12193
Analysis Plan