The Effects of MTO on Educational Opportunities in Baltimore: Early Evidence

This chapter focuses on the effects of the MTO demonstration in Baltimore on the educational opportunities of participating children. Our analysis of the distribution of affordable housing in the Baltimore area suggests that children in experimental group families who relocate will attend better schools, though this is less clearly the case for comparison group families, most of whom are expected to stay within Baltimore City. We find that, relative to the control group, children in comparison and experimental group families attend schools with higher average pass rates on standardized achievement tests, though these differences seem to be due primarily to higher resources and more advantaged student populations rather than differences in the effectiveness of schools.