The Revealed Preferences for School Reopening: Evidence from Public-School Disenrollment / Thomas Dee, Elizabeth Huffaker, Cheryl Phillips, Eric Sagara.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dee, Thomas.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Huffaker, Elizabeth.

Phillips, Cheryl.

Sagara, Eric.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29156.

NBER working paper series no. w29156

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.

Summary:

Before the 2020-21 school year, educators, policymakers, and parents confronted the stark and uncertain trade-offs implied by the health, educational, and economic consequences of offering instruction remotely, in person, or through a hybrid of the two. Most public schools in the U.S. chose remote-only instruction and enrollment fell dramatically (i.e., a loss of roughly 1.1 million K-12 students). We examine the impact of these choices on public-school enrollment using unique panel data that combine district-level enrollment trajectories with information on their instructional modes. We find offering remote-only instead of in-person instruction reduced enrollment by 1.1 percentage points (i.e., a 42 percent increase in disenrollment from -2.6 to -3.7 percent). The disenrollment effects of remote instruction are concentrated in kindergarten and, to a lesser extent, elementary schools. We do not find consistent evidence that remote instruction influenced middle or high-school enrollment or that hybrid instruction had an impact.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2021.