Quality race, and the urban education marketplace

A key issue in urban education policy is the potential impact of market-bas ed reforms. Using a data set encompassing 50 urban school systems, the auth ors investigate the market reform hypothesis by assessing the impact of per ceived school performance, race, and religion on private school enrollment, Previous work in this vein has relied on statewide data, generating findin gs that may not generalize to the urban districts at the center of the scho ol choice debate. The authors find some evidence that perceived public scho ol quality may affect enrollment, consistent with claims that competition s purs improvement. Consistent with previous work, the results also suggest t hat religious and racial considerations influence school selection.