Achievement

Trainee David Deming estimates the effect of attending a first-choice middle or high school on young adult criminal activity, using data from public school choice lotteries in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district. Seven years after random assignment, lottery winners have been arrested for fewer and less serious crimes, and have spent fewer days incarcerated. The reduction in crime persists through the end of the sample period, several years after enrollment in the preferred school is complete. Lottery winners attended schools that were higher quality according to measures of peer and teacher inputs, a gain roughly equivalent to switching from one of the lowest ranked schools to one at the district average. Effects are concentrated among African-American males whose ex-ante characteristics define them as "high risk". Hence, the CMS assignment system, which gave priority to disadvantaged applicants, probably reduced crime more than a traditional lottery.