Students don't always do better when attending high-achieving schools

Policymakers are implementing reforms with the assumption that students do better when attending high-achieving schools. In this article, longitudinal data from Chicago Public Schools is used to test that assumption.

The  results indicate that the effects of attending a higher performing school depend on the school’s performance level.

At elite public schools with admission criteria, there are no academic benefits—test scores are not better, grades are lower—but students report better environments.

In contrast, forgoing a very low-performing school for a nonselective school with high test scores and graduation rates improves a range of academic and nonacademic outcomes.