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Using high school choice forms and transit route estimates from eighth graders in Baltimore City Public Schools (2014–15 through 2019–20), results show that students from specific residential blocks list a school less often when travel takes longer or requires a bus transfer. It also finds better access can increase enrollment in higher-achieving schools, informing structural barriers and the geography of opportunity.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/how-transportation-shapes-school-choice-evidence-from-baltimore-city-public-schools/587816/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/how-transportation-shapes-school-choice-evidence-from-baltimore-city-public-schools/587816.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Melati","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":39},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does the study examine about transportation and school choice?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"The study assesses whether increases in public transportation commute difficulty reduce the likelihood that students choose a particular school.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How is the study designed to measure commute difficulty effects?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"It uses plausibly random schedule variation in the bus system, combining students’ choice forms with estimated transit routes.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What key findings are reported for students from specific residential blocks?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Students are less likely to list a school when commutes are longer or require a bus transfer, while easier access from a block can lead more students to enroll in higher-achieving schools.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},587816,1792166269,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":39,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},962085570644,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_994ba38a5ba835b3df7d355c54d3ed8d","How Transportation Shapes School Choice:  \nEvidence from Baltimore City Public Schools  \nJulia Burdick-Will, Johns Hopkins University Marc L . Stein, Improving Education  \nTechnical Report Published May, 2025  \nTransit Trade-offs:  \nPublic Transportation Difficulty, Schedule Variation, and School Preferences  \nJulia Burdick-Will  \nJohns Hopkins University  \nMarc L. Stein  \nImproving Education  \nJuly 2024  \nCorresponding Author: Julia Burdick-Will  \n533 Mergenthaler Hall 3400 N. Charles St.  \nBaltimore, MD 21218 410-516-7633 [jburdickwill@jhu.edu](jburdickwill@jhu.edu)  \n*Acknowledgements:  \nThis research was made possible by a grant from the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice and indirect support from the Baltimore Education Research Consortium. Curt Cronister provided invaluable technical support. We are grateful for feedback and assistance from the Baltimore City Public School System. All errors and opinions are our own.  \nAbstract  \nThis study exploits schedule variation in the public transportation system to assess whether increases in commute difficulty reduce the likelihood that a student will choose a particular school. Specifically, we use choice forms and public transportation route estimates from eighth graders in Baltimore City Public Schools (2014-15 through 2019-20) to show that students living in a specific residential block were less likely to list a given school as one of their high school options in years when the commute took longer or required a bus transfer. In addition, we show that in years where higher achieving schools were easier to access from a particular residential block more students who lived there end up enrolled in higher achieving schools. These findings have important implications for how we think about structural barriers to educational opportunity in the era of choice. They also highlight the connections between urban infrastructure and the education system and remind us that who has access to which schools depends on how far students are willing to travel.  \nIn an age of open-enrollment and school choice, access to educational opportunity is no longer strictly a function of where one lives. In theory, these policies allow students to enroll in a school regardless of its location and loosen the role of geography in school enrollment (Henig 2009) . At the same time, students and families face logistical constraints on their willingness and ability to travel to school every day (Bell 2009; Phillippo and Griffin 2016) . This is especially true of students without access to a private car who must rely on public transportation to get to school (Valant and Lincove 2023) .  \nDespite the logical importance of transportation in school choice preferences, there is relatively little empirical evidence for how much weight students place on their commute when choosing a school. On the one hand, there are qualitative interview studies that show that families say they prioritize closer and more convenient schools (Bell 2007) . There are also quantitative choice analyses that show that distance is negatively correlated with preferences (Glazerman and Dotter 2017; Harris and Larsen 2015) . Similarly, a growing body of research also shows that long and difficult commutes can have negative academic consequences (Blagg, Rosenboom, and Chingos 2018; Cordes, Rick, and Schwartz 2022; Edwards 2023; Stein, Burdick-Will, and Grigg 2021; Stein and Grigg 2019) . For example, students with long commutes change schools and are absent more often than those with shorter commutes. On the other hand, there are also an increasing number of research studies and journalistic accounts that document the long commutes that students are willing to undertake for the right school (BurdickWill 2017; Einhorn 2016; Glenn 2013; Nerenberg 2022; Schoenberg, Wyatt, and Farfel 2021) . One of the difficulties in resolving this apparent contradiction is that all of our current evidence relies on cross-sectional compar","cbCaimaKk7rC3H5z","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimaKk7rC3H5z","pdf",714113,38,"English","# Abstract\n# Introduction and Background\n# Preference for Convenience","[{\"question\":\"What does the study examine about transportation and school choice?\",\"answer\":\"The study assesses whether increases in public transportation commute difficulty reduce the likelihood that students choose a particular school.\"},{\"question\":\"How is the study designed to measure commute difficulty effects?\",\"answer\":\"It uses plausibly random schedule variation in the bus system, combining students’ choice forms with estimated transit routes.\"},{\"question\":\"What key findings are reported for students from specific residential blocks?\",\"answer\":\"Students are less likely to list a school when commutes are longer or require a bus transfer, while easier access from a block can lead more students to enroll in higher-achieving schools.\"}]","How Transportation Shapes School Choice - Evidence from Baltimore City Public Schools | PDF",1792063194,96]