Patterns of Aspiration: An ABM of school choice

http://landscapemodelling.net
James D.A. Millington
King’s College London
Patterns of Aspiration
Spatial agent-based simulation
of school choice policy
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

School Choice and Admissions
 Distance-based admissions policies
 hierarchies of school popularity
 lead to the reproduction of social inequality
http://landscapemodelling.netIGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

The Admissions Process
 Other boroughs account for:
 Special Educational Needs
 Medical/Social Needs
 Siblings
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

Empirical Patterns

Empirical Patterns
Barking Abbey
Warren
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

Parental Aspiration
“I don’t want my kids to
work in the supermarket.
I want my sons to
become a doctor, or a
pilot or something like
that.” [p.102]
“I just want them to be
happy and enjoy their life
and obviously, yes, do
well at school but so long
as they’re happy” [p.104]
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

Parental Aspiration
“I think [education is] reasonably important. I
wouldn’t put it up there as really top ranked just
because, you know, I think there’s more
important things in a child’s life. As long as your
child is well adjusted and doesn’t suffer in
school think, you know, the school is
appropriate” [p.105]
“Oh, the single most important thing that a
parent can give to their children in life is a first-
class education” [p.98]

Parental Aspiration
“My gift to my children…you could say
inheritance, what I pass on to them, is that
they’ve all achieved a university education. If
they’ve done that then I’ll feel I’ve done my bit
as a parent” [p.101]
“I’d like [my daughter] to go to university but if
she didn’t it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
[p.104]

Model Structure
 Family Attributes
 Aspiration
 Child Age
 Location
 Attainment
 Strategy
 Rankings
 Catchment (schools)
 Satisfactory (schools)
 Avoided (schools)
 School Attributes
 Value-added
 Location
 GCSE score
 Available Places
 List of applicants
 List of allocated pupils
(i.e., families)
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

Model Procedures
 Families rank schools for moving & applying
 Families can move once prior to application
 Move anywhere or only into areas with lower or
equal aspiration (location constraints)
 Schools allocate places to applicants based
on distance alone
 School value-added influences pupil
attainment

School Ranking Strategies
Criteria
Catchment Satisfactory Avoided
Ranking
Catchment
Satisfactory
Avoided
Other Schools

School Ranking Strategies
Criteria
Catchment Satisfactory Avoided
[not empty] [empty] [not empty]
Ranking
Catchment
Satisfactory
Avoided
Other Schools
1st by GCSE descending
N/A
Remove from ranking
2nd by distance ascending
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

Model Analysis
 Reproduction of system-level patterns
 Identify necessary structures and rules
 Identify agent-level patterns
 Which agents move?
 Which agents fail to secure preferred school?
 Explore implications of policy scenarios
 Closing poor schools
 Improving school value-added

System-Level Analysis
 What conditions needed to reproduce
empirical system-level patterns?
 Variation in school value-added?
 Constraints on family movement?
 Examine combinations of rules
 No value-added (nVA), no location constraints (nLC)
 Value-added (VA), no location constraints (nLC)
 No value-added (nVA), location constraints (LC)
 Value-added (VA), movement constraints (LC)

nLC nVA nLC VA
LC nVA LC VA
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

20 40 60 80
GCSE score
0
2
4
6
8
10
A:Pratio
20 40 60 80
GCSE score
0
2
4
6
8
10
A:Pratio
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

A:P ratio
2 4 6 8 100
0
20
40
60
80
100
Max.Distance
A:P ratio
2 4 6 8 100
0
20
40
60
80
100
Max.Distance
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

Parent-Level Analysis
 What are consequences of system-level
patterns at agent-level?
 ABM without agent-level analysis under-utilises
the approach
 Identification of agent-level patterns to
search for empirically
 Not predicting from past to future
 Predicting from ‘known to unknown’

Which parents move?

Which parents succeed?

Scenario Analysis
 Explore implications of policy scenarios
 Examine consequent patterns at system-level and
agent-level
 Closing poorest school
 Re-allocate pupils to ‘best’ school
 Re-allocate pupils to all schools
 Improving all schools’ value-added
 Implications for parent allocation strategies and
success

A:Pratio
GCSE score20 20 2080 80 80
0
10
Scenario: remove ‘poorest’ school
Poorest to Best Poorest to AllNo Removal
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

Scenario: improve schools’ VA

Future directions
 Simulating reproduction of social inequality?
 Ethnicity?
 Religion?
 Class?
 Wealth?
 Definition of a ‘good’ school?
 GCSE score used here – but what other factors?
 ‘Gaming the system’?
 And other options (e.g., leaving state schooling)
Aspiration
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

Summary
 ABM of school allocation policy
 Results support arguments about drivers of
empirical (system-level) patterns
 Agent-level patterns identified to explore
empirically
james.millington@kcl.ac.uk
@jamesmillington
IGU 2013 | Leeds, UK | 01/06/13

Patterns of Aspiration: An ABM of school choice

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