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

Last registered on November 06, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Parent’s Choice or School’s Choice? Discrimination Against Students in Admission to Private, Charter, and Traditional Public Schools
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0014631
Initial registration date
October 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
November 06, 2024, 2:25 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
National

Primary Investigator

Name
Patrick Button
Affiliation
Tulane University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Doug Harris
PI Affiliation
Tulane University
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PI Name
Hussain Hadah
PI Affiliation
Tulane University
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Barbara Lundebjerg
PI Affiliation
Tulane University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-06-09
End date
2027-04-30
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
school admissions, school application, traditional public schools, charter schools, private schools, audit study, field experiment, correspondence experiment
JEL code(s)
I24, I28, C93
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We use an audit correspondence field experiment, a type of randomized control trial, to quantify discrimination and other barriers in access to US primary and secondary education by school type (private, charter, and public) on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, and socio-economic status.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Button, Patrick et al. 2024. "Parent’s Choice or School’s Choice? Discrimination Against Students in Admission to Private, Charter, and Traditional Public Schools." AEA RCT Registry. November 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.14631-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Secretaries or other points-of-contact will receive emails with enrolment questions. These emails will vary the family and student's background but will be on-average identical otherwise.
Intervention Start Date
2025-06-10
Intervention End Date
2025-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Response rate and positive response rate
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
For response rate, this is if there is a response that is not of the "out of office" or "confirming receipt" variety. For positive response, this will be coding responses as positive only if they are helpful or encouraging in some way (responses that are neither would be coded as "0" - non-response). Our pre-analysis plan filed after our pilot will indicate how we code for positive response by obtaining IAA through best practices in coding qualitative data (O'Connor & Joffe, 2020).

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
To be completed when we file the pre-analysis plan.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
To be completed when we file the pre-analysis plan.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We randomly generate and send inquiry emails to school secretaries that are on-average identical other than different treatments (or controls) we assigned. E.g., randomly assigning some emails to be from Black families, some emails disclosing that the child has a disability, etc.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Computer randomization using Python code
Randomization Unit
School
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
123,842 at most
Sample size: planned number of observations
247,684 at most
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Varies by treatment arm. Pre-analysis plan will explain the probabilities of how each characteristic is assigned.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
To be included in pre-analysis plan, which will be uploaded in summer 2025 after our pilot study in 2024. We have preliminary power calculations but we will update those once we have data from the pilot study.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Tulane University Social/Behavioral IRB Board
IRB Approval Date
2024-10-21
IRB Approval Number
2024-1603
Analysis Plan