19
evidence is consistent with the survey data where parents, especially private school parents, cite
values as an important school attribute.
Finally, as noted earlier, almost no parents in the survey mentioned student demographics
as a choice factor. However, other research has shown that these stated preferences are often not
congruent with observed parent behavior. To investigate whether there is a mismatch between
parental stated preferences and their behavior in the Santiago R.M., we examine whether or not
the parents’ choice sets included schools with diverse student demographics. Specifically, we
analyze the variance in the average mothers’ years of schooling in the choice set.
15
As with test
scores, if the average number of years of schooling of the lowest SES school considered was
more than a one standard deviation distance from the highest SES school in the choice set, we
considered the choice set to be diverse. We found that that the vast majority of parents (87%)
only consider schools with similar student demographics.
16
Thus, while in surveys parents
hardly ever say that social class matters, these factors matter when we use a different research
technique.
In table 6, we also present data on the choice sets of parents with different levels of
education. There are few differences between these groups. Note that parents with a college
education are less likely to choose the highest performing school and more likely to consider
schools with diverse religious affiliations in their choice set than are less educated parents. The
data presented in table 7 suggests that there are some significant differences between public and
private school parents. Public school parents are more likely to consider schools in their choice
15
We obtained these data from the Ministry of Education’s parent survey. We used mothers’ years of schooling
because 83 percent of the respondents to the Ministry of Education’s parent survey were mothers.
16
In a previous version of this paper, we included an analysis of the student demographic categories the Ministry of
Education assigns to each school (see Table 1). We characterize mother’s years of schooling because it is clearer
and easier to interpret. However, the results are quite similar were we to replace years of education with the
Ministry’s demographic categories. These results are available upon request.
Convention