Lotteries for Education

Conall Boyle

Description

Lotteries are widely used to decide places (seats) at schools, colleges and universities. Conall Boyle explores many examples to find out why. The emotional turmoil that the use of ballots can cause to students and parents alike is graphically described. But lottery selection teaches lessons too; now we can find proper answers to controversial questions like "Does choice work?"This book will be of interest to parents, pupils and teachers as well as educational administrators. Any student applying for admission to a university course should learn about the amazing weighted lottery for entry to medical schools in the Netherlands. There is a better way: it's a lottery!

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 30 juin 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781845406547
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title page
Lotteries for Education
Origins, experiences, lessons
Conall Boyle
IMPRINT ACADEMIC



Publisher information
2016 digital version converted and published by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © Conall Boyle, 2010, 2016
The moral rights of the author have been asserted. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism and discussion.
Imprint Academic
PO Box 200, Exeter EX5 5YX, UK
www.imprint-academic.com



List of Examples of Lotteries for Educational Places
Non-academically selective lotteries
1. Lancashire LEA: A forgotten example from the 1990s
2. Eastwood School, Essex 2000, 2005
3. St Bernadette’s R C Primary, Brighton 2004
4. Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham Academy, London 2005
5. Lady Margaret Girls School, London 2007
6. Michael J Petrides School, New York 1994, 1998
7. SEED Boarding School, Baltimore Maryland US 2008
8. Washington College, DC 1969
9. Daewon International School, Korea 2008
10. CAPE Primary School, Camarillo, California 2009
11. Brighton & Hove LEA 2007
12. Hertfordshire and other English LEAs, 2007
13. Chicago Public Schools 1980s onwards
14. Pasadena School District, California 1999
15. Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, N Carolina 2002
16. Charter Schools, Newark NJ 2009
17. Secondary Schools, New Zealand 2007
18. Secondary Schools, Tel-Aviv, Israel 2003
19. Beijing Eastern City District 1998
20. Vouchers for pupils, Columbia, South America 1990s
21. Vouchers for villages, Mexico 1990s
22. Vouchers, Milwaukee schools 1990 onwards
23. Privately funded vouchers, three US cities 1998
24. Universal private school voucher, Sweden 1992 on
Academically selective lotteries - mostly universities
25. Magnet Schools, Tennessee 2009
26. Central Magnet School, Bridgeport, Connecticut 2005
27. Borderlines, National University of Ireland 2009
28. Shortlisting, QMC Medical School, London 2003
29. Glendale Nursing College, California 1997 onwards
30. Physiotherapy, Leeds Metropolitan, Huddersfield 2004
31. B.Sc. Business, Maastricht, Netherlands 2009
32. Medical Schools, the Netherlands 1975 - 1998
33. Medical Schools, Norway 1989
Selecting teachers and students by lottery
34. Student housing in the US
34a Chicago
34b Dartmouth, NH 2000
34c Harvard 2009
34d Duke 2009
34e Dartmouth, NH 2009
34f Swarthmore 2009: behavioural modification
35. Car parking, Harvard 2004
36. Boston Schools 2005: foiling crafty parents
37. Teacher sacking, Oregon 2009
38. Teaching assignments, training co-op, London 2006
39. Places on Courses for Elders, Chicago 2005
40. Choral training, Berkshire, US 2005
41. Popular options, Stanford University 2009
42. Teaching aid, sticks to pick students at random
43. Magnet School, Chicago 2008: Sibling scam



Introduction
Using a lottery to share out scarce resources has been implemented in various places and times without any clear rationale for its use being stated or available . This is equally true in the case of educational lotteries. The recent example of school-places in Brighton came as bolt from the blue to most commentators. The origins of lottery use in this case can be discovered (and will be explained in Chapter 2), but even these originators failed to discover uses from 10 or 20 years earlier which might have set a useful precedent to follow. There is clearly a need for a handbook which would assist those grappling with existing lottery-selection schemes or contemplating implementing them. They could learn from what has gone before as well as understanding the underlying rationale for lottery use.
The main theme of this book is the selection of students for places at schools, colleges and universities. Education is generally a publicly-funded service because the opportunity to learn and gain qualifications is seen as important, especially so as it provides a means of equalising life-chances. There is, rightly, a public interest in how sought-after places at the best schools and colleges are distributed.
One way of ensuring that this is done fairly and efficiently could be through the use of lotteries to award places. What I aim to provide here is a representative collection of examples where this has been done, documenting the evidence and conclusions from these actual cases. This is not an attempt to catalogue every use, nor should the examples thought of as ‘exemplars’ - ideal models which should be followed. It may be, as Deming (p52 Neave, 1990), that all-wise management guru explained: “Examples teach us nothing unless they are studied with the aid of theory. Most people merely search for examples in order to copy them.” I hope that no-one would blindly copy any of the examples given, but there is much that can be learned about what works and what should be avoided. I would hope that educationists, administrators and students of education could gain a better understanding of why lottery allocation was preferred and what those involved in a lottery felt about its use. They can then make an informed decision with more confidence should they wish to implement a similar scheme for themselves.
When documenting the range of lottery allocation schemes that are being used I have tried to find out their context. Who suggested using lotteries in each particular case? How did discussions amongst political groups and legislators lead to lottery use? Where this information is available I will report on it.
Often missing in discussions of public policy are the experiences and views of the public - the very people who are intended to benefit from public services such as education. It is for this reason that I have included many reported comments made when lotteries have been used. These can be found both in print and broadcast media. Views can be found in the form of editorials, but perhaps the most interesting of all are observations made by members of the public who are directly involved in such lottery allocations. These are all opinions, so they are not like the reliable results of opinion polls. But even the ill-informed prejudices of the general public should be heeded because it is they, as voters, who must be satisfied before public policy is changed.
There is an unintended yet powerful consequence of using lotteries to allocate places in education. Analysts can now test some of their cherished theories in proper ‘scientific’ manner. There is plenty of data available about educational attainment but most of it is of little scientific use because it does not come from properly conducted experiments. Luckily in a few cases where lotteries have been used to decide school- or university-places there is a rare opportunity to do so. Some important questions have been addressed, like: Does choice work? Is there a peer-group effect? Do entry grades predict final degree classification? Gems of validated knowledge can now be extracted from this use of lotteries.
But can it be fair or just to use lotteries to distribute publicly-funded goods? Talk of fairness and justice leads us into the realms of philosophy. I am constantly fascinated and impressed by the arguments of the philosophers but they can sometimes be heavy going! I do not avoid such argumentation altogether in this book: I report one delightful spat between philosophers in Chapter 6. For those who want more of this approach, I include some references for further reading.
My own background as an engineer turned economist leads me towards what the economist Alvin Roth (2002) calls a mechanism-design approach. Using a lottery to distribute prizes is not just an idea, it is also a mechanism. We can reasonably ask: how well does this mechanism work? The influence of experimental psychology, too, is becoming increasingly important, even for economists. The writings of Kahneman & Tversky (1979) should be more influential in understanding the motivations and behaviour of both bureaucrats and applicants. This knowledge does not yet seem to have reached the economists of Public Choice. Economics, psychology and mechanics can thus be combined in order to explain the examples as they are encountered.
A note about rhetorical ‘lotteries’ from those who should know better: Of course this book is not about lotteries which are used for gambling, but just to put the record straight, here are some examples of ‘lotteries’ that I will not be dealing with:
Schools funded in ‘postcode lottery’ Education in Wales has turned into a ‘postcode lottery’ because of changes in the way schools are funded, a government advisor has said. Professor David Reynolds, a senior advisor on education, said divisions between areas were growing as a result of the Welsh Assembly’s recent decision to abolish the suggested spending figure for education in Wales. Mr Reynolds is head of the school of education at Exeter University. (BBC 2 Apr 2001)
Education “still a lottery” The gap between the best and worst schools in England is still too wide in spite of significant improvements in teaching, according to the chief inspector of schools. In his annual report, Chris Woodhead says “the education system remains a ‘lottery’ in which schools serving similar communities achieve widely varying results”. (BBC 9 Feb 1999)
What the word ‘lottery’ (thankfully used here in quotes) is meant to show in these extracts is that there is an uneven or haphazard distribution of public resources. What I describe in this book is the deliberate use of some form of randomness to decide who wins the prize of a place at an academic establishment. Th