Education Choice and Competition Index 2015: Summary and Commentary

The Brookings Institution releases an annual Education Choice and Competition Index (ECCI) that chronicles how school choice is manifested in the nation's 100+ largest school districts. The ECCI scores and ranks districts on the degree to which families within the district's borders have access to: (1) maximum choice; (2) a choice process that maximizes the match between parental preference and school assignment; (3) funding and management processes that favor the growth of popular schools at the expense of unpopular schools; and (4) subsidies for the costs of choice for poor families, particularly for transportation. This report accompanies the fifth release of the ECCI. This report highlights some interesting findings and provides a commentary that focuses on the tension between the psychology of choice as it is experienced by parents, the design goals of centralized computer-based assignment mechanisms, and the politics of school choice. [For the 2014 report, see ED614748.]