# When Schools Enroll by Lottery, Who Wins? Lessons from Columbus City Schools April 09, 2025 - [ Blog ](/news-categories/blog) ![Hem](/sites/g/files/omnuum4446/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-04/avatar.jpg?itok=VZwXxgvt) *“We have a complicated system of school lotteries, and one question for our board and for our community is, has that made the district more equitable?”* \- Hem Rizal Columbus City Schools is the biggest district in Ohio, a state where school choice policies have a [long history.](https://scohio.org/) Within the district, about one in 10 students opt to attend a public school outside their zoned neighborhood. These schools of choice include theme-based schools in the arts and sciences, academically selective college-prep programs, and schools that enroll students based on city region. Every spring, the district operates are large-scale randomized lottery that determines where students can enroll. It’s a complex system in a district where [dwindling enrollment](https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/commentary/ohio-districts-should-permanently-close-their-lowest-performing-schools) and [budget pressures](https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2025/02/28/columbus-city-schools-superintendent-ohio-state-budget-cut/80865192007/) have prompted [school closures](https://www.10tv.com/article/news/local/columbus-city-schools-building-closures-board-meeting/530-db8c6a0e-0177-42e5-a4dd-c1e50bd0b550) and [transportation cuts](https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2024/10/03/columbus-city-school-busing-charter-students-yost-ag-ohio-education/75498477007/) in the 2024­–25 school year. While these trends have not yet affected the district’s school choice program to date, they highlight important questions. The district wanted to know: Did CCS students who won the lottery and attended a lottery school have better academic outcomes and future opportunities? What is the return on investment at CCS lottery schools? SDP Fellow Hem Rizal believed that unlocking the answers to these questions could help the administration address both equity and efficiency in the district. “The administration is interested in making sure our resources are aligned equitably throughout the district,” he said, adding “they are interested in the efficacy of transporting kids across town, including through the lottery process.” **Designing a Causal Study** To address these questions, Rizal saw the opportunity for a natural experiment. He decided to compare outcomes between two groups of lottery entrants at CCS: students who won the lottery and attended a lottery school and students who entered the lottery but did not win a seat. He pitched the idea and won the support of his supervisor at the district’s [Division of Research and Program Evaluation](https://www.ccsoh.us/Page/11454), where he is a manager of Analytics and Data Management. While CCS students in any grade can apply to the enrollment lottery each year, the study was limited to rising 9th graders at the five CCS high schools where enrollment is entirely based on the random lottery. This decision focused the analysis on just those schools where enrollment is entirely randomized and on data at the high-school level, which is rich in detail. Rizal worked with department heads across the district to build his dataset, which included student attendance, test scores, and high-school graduation rates. He also traced lottery entrants’ post-secondary enrollment with data from the [National Student Clearinghouse](https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/) and their responses to school climate surveys conducted by [Panorama Education](https://www.panoramaed.com/). In all, the data covered a six-year period, from 2017–18 to 2022–23. To determine the impact of attending a lottery school, Rizal used the [Instrumental Variables](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022arXiv221205778W/abstract) (IV) method, which can unmask causal relationships among complex sets of observational data. Rizal used his advanced methodological skillset to identify the impacts of not only winning an enrollment lottery, and but also accepting a lottery offer and attending a lottery school. **Assessing Impacts** First, Rizal looked at which students choose to participate in CCS enrollment lotteries. While the numbers have fluctuated in recent years—particularly during pandemic-related interruptions—on average, about one in six district students apply each year. He found that, compared to the district overall, lottery entrants are more likely to be Black and female. He found that the share of entrants who choose to enroll in a lottery school has grown over time, to 57 percent in 2022-23 from about 42 percent five years earlier. Not all lottery winners choose to enroll in a lottery school; for example, in 2022-23, just 75 percent of the 5,780 lottery winners, or 4,330 students, enrolled in a lottery school. The data did not reveal why—students can apply to three schools, but the CCS lottery does not allow ranked-choice voting. Adjusting the lottery to better capture student preferences could “significantly” improve the fairness of school placements and rigor of evaluation research, Rizal noted. Rizal then assessed differences in academic performance. Students who win an enrollment lottery and go on to attend a 100-percent lottery school get slightly higher scores on annual statewide tests and are more likely to regularly attend school. However, there were no significant impacts on high-school graduation or college enrollment. Rizal also analyzed the survey data for impacts on students’ senses of belonging and efficacy. He compared individual students’ average scores in these domains at different points in time and did not find any statistically significant differences between students who did not win an enrollment lottery and those who won and went on to attend a lottery school. However, he noted that the sample size was small and effect sizes were relatively large—a possible indication that lottery-based enrollment may have some relationship to belonging and efficacy in real life. In terms of how the data might be used, Rizal said, “the idea is that maybe this will help us down the line in terms of understanding efficacy and outcomes.” **Lessons Learned** Students at lottery high schools did experience some benefits. But, when Rizal took a broad view of the data and study, he realized he had an even bigger question—one that his data could not yet answer. Beyond students who don’t win a lottery spot, what about students who don’t choose to participate in the lottery at all? “There were some improvements in test scores and attendance for lottery students, but did we unintentionally make the district less equitable?” he said. “Are the students who apply and go to lottery schools somewhere very different from the ones that don’t apply?” “If you apply and get in versus if you apply but don’t get in, at the very least you had the agency to apply—maybe your parents are involved, maybe you understand the implications of education, maybe you have a neighbor or tutor, or you come from a higher socioeconomic background,” he said. “It’s important that we explore how much inequity we might let persist because we are letting some students with agency, or power, or influence, or whatever else, take this route.” The history and context of the program are critical to understanding the data on their own and within that bigger picture, he said. Delving into the backstory to learn how a particular program came to be can help analysts situate their findings within meaningful, relevant context. In Rizal’s case, that included [reading](https://ohiostatepress.org/books/BookPages/JacobsGetting.htm) about the history of school enrollment, desegregation, and choice in Columbus, as well as building relationships across district departments through regular meetings, to gain historical perspective from the inside. “It’s so important to understand the history—in this case, white flight and suburban real estate development—and to build relationships and honor the work that folks have done,” he said. “Instead of coming in and saying, ‘All right, I’m going to impose my philosophy and you are going to do things differently.’ The people here know a lot about what works and what has not worked in the past.” With that context in mind, Rizal is currently working to share the results throughout the district, he said. “I am reigniting that process to get it to the leaders so that way they all see it and, to the extent that they want to read it, they can potentially come up with some policy. One thing that I'm learning is that these things take a long time. There's a lot of history and a lot of work that has gone into building the district to where we are.” See also:- [ SDP Blog ](/tags/sdp-blog) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)