Information, School Choice, and Academic Achievement: Evidence from Two Experiments.

We examine a natural experiment and a field experiment that provided direct information on school test
scores to lower-income families in a public school choice plan. Receiving information significantly
increases the fraction of parents choosing higher-performing schools. Parents with high-scoring
alternatives nearby were more likely to choose non-guaranteed schools with higher test scores. Using
random variation from each experiment, we find that attending a higher-scoring school increases student
test scores. The results imply that school choice will most effectively increase academic achievement for
disadvantaged students when parents have easy access to test score information and good options to
choose from.