Limits on Migration

The model also includes some self-regulating behavior. It is unlikely that any sector of the economy can grow at 10-20 percent per year indefinitely. Certainly, a 20-percent increase in alternative school enrollment would be difficult to handle, although with some excess capacity and the ability to lease space in other buildings, it may be possible. To account for this supply constraint, the model places a limit of 15 percent per year on migration to alternative schools. Thus, in the first year migration is to be constrained to only 15 percent. In subsequent years, as the desired migration drops to 10, 9, and then 8 percent per year, the migration limit becomes less of a factor.

In the last three columns of Table 7, we see that the projected migration between the traditional public schools and alternative schools ranges between 0 and 43,000 students per year. This equates to a migration of approximately 2 percent of traditional public school students each year, a relatively small amount, and leaves the government school sector at 1.4 million students in the year 2005. Alternative schools experience an annual increase in their enrollment of approximately 15 percent each year due to the tax credit, producing a total enrollment of nearly 600,000 in 2005. These figures are shown on the next page in Table 8, which compares the enrollment trends under the current system and the UTTC plan.