Neighborhood schools versus school choice: An empirical test of the Tiebout model on capitalization, demographic changes, and impact to measures of segregation

In 1996, in response to a court order, the Rockford School District implemented a Controlled Choice school assignment policy to desegregate their school district. This dissertation investigates the impact of the Controlled Choice policy on the housing prices within the city, the impact on the racial distribution within the policy created zones, the central city and the MSA, and then compares these results to two sets of control groups made up of similar MSAs across the country.;The first chapter briefly outlines the Rockford, Illinois, desegregation lawsuit and the Control Choice policy implemented. Additionally the chapter shows how the Tiebout (1956) theory applies to this case and offers a set of testable hypotheses. The second chapter tests the extent to which the loss of certainty in the school assignment process impacted the housing prices within the three policy zones using data from 1993 to 2000. The quality of the previously assured neighborhood school is added and the results show that formerly high quality schools lost an average of 9.3 percent of their value whereas homes previously assigned to poor quality schools saw increases in values.;The third chapter presents evidence of "choice flight" that occurs as an unintended consequence of school choice. Population data indicates increased flight from the district by the majority populations, as expected, but also by the African American population as well. Demographic measures of segregation indicate that the school choice policy not only desegregated the schools, but the subsequent sorting led to less segregation in the overall community as well. The fourth chapter tests the notion that the changes observed in the previous chapter are related to the Controlled Choice policy rather than to suburbanization. The mean value of the Rockford demographic measures are compared to two control groups made up of MSAs across the U.S. selected for their racial and urban/suburban mix similarities to Rockford. Although the migration rates of the population do follow the predictions from the assignment policy design, none seem to be significantly different from the migration currently observed in other MSAs. However, avoidance of the central city local schools is observed in the suburban data among whites, Asians and African Americans. The fifth chapter concludes with a summary of the findings and suggestions for future research.