We use administrative data from the lottery-based open enrollment system in Beijing middle schools to obtain unbiased estimates of school fixed effects on student performance. To do this, we classify children in selection channels, with each channel representing a unique succession of lotteries through which a child was assigned to a school.…

One major concern with public school open enrollment programs is the potential for parents' school selection errors to adversely affect their children's academic achievement. In this study of the Beijing middle school open enrollment program, we estimate the degree to which children's school outcomes were negatively affected by the poor choices…