The relationship between the market structure, competition and lotteries for getting into schools.

What is it about?

This article argues that the lottery system for gaining entrance into certain U.S. schools are far from a neutral process, but is a competitive process that makes up, and reinforces, the broader competitive school choice discourse.

Featured Image

Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash

Photo by dylan nolte on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Three points. First, this article demonstrates the contingency of school choice expansion and thus allows people to consider other ways of thinking and doing things. Second, this article contributes to the long-standing, and current, conversation around the erosion of meritocracy in the U.S. and other Western societies. Last, school choice is now a key education policy reform, and the lottery system is typically a part of it. However, the lottery is often positioned as a neutral process/system, and its “partial” competitive nature is not articulated.