Is There Choice in Choice? Investigating Product Differentiation Across New Orleans District and Charter Schools

Abstract

A common justification for market-based school reform is increasing the variety of schooling options over a typical bureaucratic system. However, decentralization of school governance and more flexible enrollment might not lead to more diverse options if family or charter authorizer preferences are homogeneous, if governments impose strict regulations on schools, or if the increased market share of networked charter management organizations leads them to adopt similar models. We test the effects of decentralization and choice on school differentiation using an extreme case: in the city of New Orleans, charter schools make up 95 percent of the public school market. Using cluster analysis to group New Orleans schools along similar characteristics, we find evidence that, although not all schools are unique, there is considerable product differentiation. A cross-city comparison with more traditional public school systems suggests that similar differentiation might be achieved with a small market share of charters or magnets.