School choice madness in LAUSD is about to start, but I want to get this out before we go too far down the school choice path. I know school choice is stressful. This site started as some buddies and me just publishing what we knew about school choices to make it easier for us to understand and by extension, other families. What if making choices is disproportionately difficult for the poor, and thus school choice becomes less attainable?
A semi-recent article in The New Republic has me taking its theme of the affect of poverty on people’s capacity to make choices and how it affects school choice programs. To recap the article, it is a synthesis of recent research on how making choices is mental tiring and what that means for the poor. “But the core of the breakthrough is that resolving conflicts among choices is expensive at a cognitive level and can be unpleasant. It causes mental fatigue.” How does poverty come in to play? “The level at which the poor have to exert financial self-control, they have suggested, is far lower than the level at which the well-off have to do so.” “In one experiment, poor participants in India performed far less well on a self-control task after simply having to first decide whether to purchase body soap…Again, if you have enough money, deciding whether to buy the soap only requires considering whether you want it, not what you might have to give up to get it.“ I understand the research focuses on money and financial choices, but school choice is just as taxing as any major financial decision.
In the context of LAUSD there are 8 different school choice pathways representing over 900 options. LAUSD serves 620,000 students with 76% living in poverty. Considering the extensive number of poor families in LAUSD and our belief that school choice should be equally accessible, it’s no surprise that HCC would have an interest in this story. Could the “mental fatigue” referred to in this article be an obstacle to parent’s taking advantage of school choice.
Anecdotally, I teach in a school where 99% of families qualify as poor. My students inspired me to create HCC because there was so much confusion and misinformation about school choice. I know this is emerging research, but it does encourage HCC to keep on going and continue to focus on making the choice process in LAUSD easier. As the new year of school choice is about to kick off, its worth affirming that HCC is not just committed to making choices visible, but also to make it easier for all families to take advantage of LAUSD school choices.
On a related note. If anyone knows of a graduate school where one could research equitable access to school choice, respond back.
