Private exit, public exit, and achievement in secondary education

Abstract

AbstractPerceptions of declining academic achievement have motivated a number of governments worldwide to introduce greater school choices to parents in the hope of fostering competition and thus arrest the apparent decline in educational achievement. Exit provides dissatisfied citizens with a decisive mechanism to signal their views regarding the quality of public education institutions. Private exit – abandoning the public education system entirely – is well established in most countries; however, public exit – moving to a separate system of selective high‐quality public schools – is an alternative that exists in only a few jurisdictions. We employ a comprehensive 6‐year panel of data on socio‐educational advantage and academic achievement for an education system which offers both private and public exit choice. In so doing, we show how different exit options affect choices and outcomes for various categories of schools.