# School-choice criteria

**What should we look for when choosing a school?**

What you weigh most when choosing a school: nearby and community, results and rankings, teaching approach, the mix of students, or your child's happiness.

In short: Parents choose between 5 main approaches: Proximity and community; Results and rankings; Pedagogy fit; Peer mix; The child's happiness. Evidence: evidence leans one way. Research or guidance points in a direction, but it's thin, small or correlational. Best settled: preschool.

- Area: School and academics
- Evidence: Evidence leans one way
- Best settled: Preschool
- First published: 2026-10-03
- Last updated: 2026-10-05
- Page: https://www.raisingyourchild.com/topics/school-and-academics--school-choice-criteria

## School-choice criteria: what are the options?

1. **Proximity and community**: You choose the nearest school and its neighborhood friendships.
2. **Results and rankings**: You choose on test scores and published rankings.
3. **Pedagogy fit**: You choose the school whose way of teaching suits your child.
4. **Peer mix**: You choose based on who the other students are.
5. **The child's happiness**: You choose where your child feels happiest.

## School-choice criteria: what does the evidence say?

**Evidence leans one way.** Research or guidance points in a direction, but it's thin, small or correlational.

Two lines of research are worth knowing. In a Chicago public-school lottery of 14,434 eighth-graders, winning a seat at a higher-achieving school did not improve traditional outcomes (graduation was 4.4 points lower), though winners reported fewer disciplinary actions and arrests, which the authors link to a student's relative standing among peers. And a study of how parents rank schools found that their preferences track peer quality and test scores more than a school's true effectiveness once peers are accounted for (Abdulkadiroglu et al., NBER; I saw only its summary). That suggests weighing fit, safety and the child, not rankings alone; how much to weigh proximity, pedagogy and peers is your call

Sources:

- [J-PAL summary of Cullen, Jacob & Levitt](https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/effect-school-choice-student-outcomes-united-states)
- [Abdulkadiroglu et al., NBER](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23912/w23912.pdf)

## What else is worth knowing?

When you have a choice of schools, you need a way to compare them. Rankings measure test results, which partly reflect who attends. Couples often rank the criteria differently without realizing it.

## Questions to ask each other

- What are our top three criteria for a school?
- How would we weigh test results against our child's happiness?
- What would be a dealbreaker?

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General information, not medical advice. Two parents can each answer this and compare: https://www.raisingyourchild.com/explore?cat=school-and-academics&topic=school-and-academics--school-choice-criteria