2012 - The Cost-Effectiveness of Socioeconomic School Integration

Attribution: Basile, Marco
Researchers: Marco Basile
University Affiliation: Harvard University
Email: mbasile@fas.harvard.edu
Research Question:
1) What is the effect of SES integration on outcomes? 2) Is SES integration a cost effective strategy for diversity? 3) Is SES integration a cost effective strategy for school improvement?
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: The Cost-Effectiveness of Socioeconomic School Integration
Journal Entry: The Future of School Integration: Socioeconomic Diversity as an Education Reform Strategy pp 127-151
Year: 2012
Findings:
  1. The author envisions the plan through a system of “controlled choice” in which the parental choice of schools is honored with an eye to maximizing socioeconomic integration.
  2. Socioeconomic integration raises high school graduation rates, greater graduation rates lead to higher individual earnings and public savings to the point of exceeding the cost of integration.
  3. Socioeconomic integration may be a more cost effective reform than the reduction of class size, and private school voucher programs.
  4. Every one dollar spent today to promote socioeconomic integration of public education might be expected to yield through private earning, more than five dollars in the future (in constant dollars).
Keywords: PovertyReformSESSES CompositionRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: ModelAnalysis Methods: Theoretical Sampling Frame:n/a
Sampling Types: NonrandomAnalysis Units: School DistrictData Types: Quantitative
Data Description:
  • The author conducts an empirical analysis, and offers a hypothetical model to illustrate the effectiveness of using socioeconomic diversity as an education reform strategy.
  • The author models a hypothetical inter-district transfer plan in which schools in poorer areas are magnetized to attract students from more affluent school districts. And the more affluent districts are encouraged through incentive payments to receive low-income transfer students.
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts