Evaluating the provision of school performance information for school choice

We develop and implement a framework for determining the optimal performance metrics to help parents choose a school. This approach combines the three major critiques of the usefulness of performance tables into a natural metric. We implement this for 500,000 students in England for a range of performance measures. Using performance tables is strongly better than choosing at random: a child who attends the highest ex ante performing school within their choice set will ex post do better than the average outcome in their choice set twice as often as they will do worse.

► Evaluating the provision of school performance information for school choice.
► Basing school choice on performance tables is better than uninformed choice.
► “Levels” performance measures are more useful than “gains” measures.
► Usefulness of performance tables varies, most useful when needed most.