Last week the Brookings Institute issued the Education Choice and Competition Index, which ranks 100 school districts on the “ease with which parents can exercise the choices afforded to them, and the degree to which the choice system results in greater access to quality schools for students who would otherwise be
assigned to a low-performing public school based on their family’s place of residence.”
One correction: the Index gives Camden Public Schools an “F,” which signifies “that families have very little in the way of school choice other than the choice that parents can exercise by purchasing a residence within the geographical assignment zone of their preferred public school.” The researchers may have missed that last Spring Camden implemented a universal enrollment system that allows parents to choose among traditional, charter, and hybrid renaissance schools.
Newark, with a similar system, got a “B+.” A notch above Newark on the Index is New Orleans, Denver, and New York City.
