Closing the Gaps: An Examination of Early Impacts of Dallas ISD's Opt-Out Policy on Advanced Course Enrollment
Under review at Education Finance and Policy · EdWorkingPapers No. 25-1184
Abstract
Advanced high school courses predict subsequent student success, but fewer Black and Hispanic students take advanced courses compared to their White peers. One strategy to increase advanced course enrollment is to use an “opt-out” approach, in which all students are enrolled in advanced courses unless they decline. We use a synthetic control design to evaluate the impact of an opt-out policy in Dallas Independent School District (DISD), a large urban district in Texas, on the early uptake of Algebra I in the 2019-20 school year. The policy increased enrollment and completion of Algebra I before high school by 11.7 and 10.5 percentage points respectively relative to a synthetic district. The Hispanic–White enrollment gap decreased substantially, while there was a small but insignificant increase in the Black–White enrollment gap. Descriptive analysis suggests that Black students did not benefit as much, likely due in part to having fewer students meet the auto enrollment criterion, more students leaving DISD, and fewer non-honors track students taking Algebra I by 8th grade.
Media coverage: Education Week; Fordham Institute; EdWorkingPapers Policy and Practice Series