Mechanism Design Approach to School Choice: One versus Many

TL;DR

This paper advocates for a shift in school choice mechanism design from focusing on multiple schools simultaneously to emphasizing individual school admissions policies, highlighting its importance for diversity and affirmative action.

Contribution

It introduces the under-explored approach of designing mechanisms for single schools, contrasting with the traditional multi-school focus in school choice literature.

Findings

Highlights the importance of single-school admissions policies.

Argues for more research on individual school-focused mechanisms.

Suggests potential benefits for diversity and affirmative action.

Abstract

A vast majority of the school choice literature focuses on designing mechanisms to simultaneously assign students to many schools, and employs a "make it up as you go along" approach when it comes to each school's admissions policy. An alternative approach is to focus on the admissions policy for one school. This is especially relevant for effectively communicating policy objectives such as achieving a diverse student body or implementing affirmative action. I argue that the latter approach is relatively under-examined and deserves more attention in the future.