Public Policy Commons^™

When Educators Are The Learners: Private Contracting By Public Schools, Silke Forbes, Nora Gordon

Nora Gordon

We investigate decision-making and the potential for social learning among school administrators in the market for school reform consulting services. Specifically, we estimate whether public schools are more likely to choose given Comprehensive School Reform service providers if their “peer” schools—defined by common governance or geography—have performed unusually well with those providers in the past. We find strong evidence that schools tend to contract with providers used by other schools in their own districts in the past, regardless of past performance. In addition, our point estimates are consistent with school administrators using information from peers to choose the plans they …