Ladd, H & Fiske, E., (2001)

‘The uneven playing field of school choice:
evidence from New Zealand.’

Journal of Policy Analysis & Management 20, No. 1, pp. 43-64

• Investigates the segregation effects of New Zealand’s education reforms, which opened up the demand side of schooling (parents could choose any school) while keeping the supply side under rigid government control.
• The authors do not have data on student achievement, so focus purely on the sorting effects of the reforms.
• They find evidence that the effect was to generate a system in which gaps between the “successful” and the “unsuccessful” schools became wider and in which minority and poor students were disproportionately concentrated in the “unsuccessful” schools.
• It should be noted that in this system successful schools had a disincentive to expand (not enough money ‘followed the pupil’) and unsuccessful schools were not permitted to close.