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Positive perceptions of school climate correlate with many dimensions of academic well-being and student health. Unfortunately, some existing research finds more favorable perceptions in middle school for general education students (GENs) than for students with disabilities (SWDs). Given the importance of ninth grade to student success, it is important to know if perceptions improve when students go to high school, if they improve more for GENs than SWDs, and if they are mediated by school characteristics. Our analysis of rich student-level longitudinal data suggests that students perceive improvements in school climate when they transition to high school, school characteristics do mediate perceptions, and perceptions of GENs improve more (or decline less) than those of SWDs, resulting in gaps favoring GENs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research increasingly seeks to answer the question: does special education work? This is different than asking if specific interventions have positive effects and instead aims to identify system-wide impacts. We systematically review published quantitative research on the impact of receiving special education services on student outcomes using large administrative data, as well as review the methodology used in existing research. The takeaway from the 15 included studies is that special education positively impacts student outcomes, and the growth of students receiving special education typically matched or exceeded the growth of their general education peers. Methods used in these studies were, however, quasi-experimental, so limitations to credibly causal claims remain. In addition, that relatively few studies met our inclusion criteria reflects the need for additional research, and we highlight methodological and substantive considerations for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential mobility is likely to have consequences for student performance, but prior empirical work is largely correlational and offers little insight into its impacts. Using rich, longitudinal data, we estimate the effects of residential mobility on the performance of New York City public school students. Using both student fixed effects and instrumental variables approaches, we find that long-distance moves have negative effects, while short-distance moves improve student performance. These differential effects are partially, but not fully, explained by school mobility. Rather, the positive effects of short-distance moves may be explained by improvements in housing, while the negative impacts of long-distance moves may be explained by lower performance relative to school peers and loss of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While chronic absenteeism hurts all students, one particularly vulnerable group, students with disabilities (SWDs), has received little attention in research or policy. Particularly troubling is the dearth of research into the patterns of absences for SWDs and GENs who attend school together in urban school systems, given relatively higher absenteeism when compared to suburban and rural districts. Research Questions: First, how do rates of chronic absenteeism compare between SWDs and students without disabilities (GENs) attending the same schools (hereafter traditional schools)? Second, are there differences between SWDs who are educated in "GEN-majority" classrooms and those educated in "SWD-majority" classrooms? Finally, do these patterns differ for students with different disabilities? Subjects: Our study consists of GENs and SWDs in grades 1-6 who attended a traditional NYC public school between 2006 and 2012. Our sample includes 653,736 students across 37,867 classrooms, and 1,148 public elementary schools. Measures include race/ethnicity, gender, age, foreign-born status, limited English proficiency, free/reduced price lunch eligibility, grade level, classroom ID, school ID, the number of days each student was absent, and the total number of school days each student was registered in the district. For SWDs, the data include indicators for the thirteen disability classifications defined under IDEA and a primary assigned special education setting. Research Design: We begin with a baseline model, where being chronically absent (i.e., missing 10% or more of the school year) is regressed on an indicator for being a SWD, controlling for grade and year. We build on this model by first including demographic control variables, then school fixed effects, and finally classroom fixed effects. We then explore this model for differences by type of classroom setting as well as by type of disability. Findings: Chronic absenteeism is considerably higher for SWDs than GENs in traditional schools, and there is important heterogeneity by disability classifications. Specifically, students with emotional disturbances exhibit extremely high rates of chronic absenteeism and the largest group of SWDs, students with learning disabilities, have quite high rates as well. Further, SWDs in GEN-majority classrooms are less likely to be chronically absent than those in SWDmajority classrooms, again with variation by disability. Conclusions: As the nationwide trend of providing SWDs with more education in GENmajority classrooms continues to press forward, our study shows that increasingly GENmajority settings are associated with fewer absences for SWDs. And while school attendance, among other non-achievement outcomes, are not the primary focus of IDEA, our findings point to how some school settings might be beneficial to some but put others at risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The passage of landmark federal legislation in 1975 guaranteed students with disabilities (SWDs) a free appropriate public education. Over time, reauthorization of this legislation has highlighted the importance of educating SWDs in the general education environment where appropriate, and significant interaction with general education peers who are not receiving special education services (GENs) has followed. The largest U.S. school district—New York City (NYC), the setting of our study—mirrors this national trend toward more inclusive environments. Despite the trend, a critical question remains: Does inclusion in fact feel inclusive? This study provides a district-wide descriptive analysis of feelings of inclusion among SWDs compared to their GEN peers. We rely on detailed, longitudinal administrative and student survey data on approximately 249,000 NYC middle school students attending schools that educate both SWDs and GENs (which we call traditional schools in contrast with schools that educate only SWDs). Our results suggest that while gaps between SWDs overall and GENs are quite small, there is some heterogeneity. Specifically, students with an emotional disturbance (ED) and other health impairments (OH) feel modestly less included with peers but more with adults. There are, however, almost no differences in feelings of inclusion between students assigned exclusive and inclusive services, even for those in the ED and OH groups. In fact, for students with low incidence (LI) disabilities, feelings of inclusion are slightly better when assigned exclusive services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across the country and in urban areas in particular, many students change schools during the academic year. While much research documents the impact of changing schools on the academic achievement of mobile students themselves, less research explores whether new arrivals have negative spillovers on stable classmates. The lack of research on impacts of mid-year entry is problematic, as poor, minority, and low-achieving students are disproportionately exposed to mid-year entry. In this study, we use a rigorous causal identification strategy and rich longitudinal data on fourth- through eighth-grade students in the New York City (NYC) public schools to estimate the impact of exposure to mid-year entry on the achievement of stable students. We analyze heterogeneous effects of mid-year entrants by origin (arriving from other NYC public schools, from other U.S. school systems, or from other countries), determine the extent to which mid-year entrants’ characteristics mediate the impact of mid-year entry, and explore the moderating influence of stable students’ characteristics. We find small negative effects of mid-year entry on both math and English language arts test scores in the short run. These impacts are not driven by mid-year entrant characteristics and are somewhat larger for Asian students and those who do not qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Finally, results suggest mid-year entry continues to negatively influence the math performance of stable students beyond the year of exposure. We discuss the relevance of results and conclude with recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research finds that grade span affects academic achievement but only speculates about the mechanisms. In this study, we examine one commonly cited mechanism, the top dog/bottom dog phenomenon, which states that students at the top of a grade span (“top dogs”) have better experiences than those at the bottom (“bottom dogs”). Using an instrumental variables strategy introduced in Rockoff and Lockwood (2010) and a longitudinal data set containing student survey data for New York City public middle school students, we estimate the impact of top dog and bottom dog status on bullying, safety, belonging, and academic achievement. This article provides the first credibly causal evidence that top dog status improves the learning environment and academic achievement. We further find that the top dog effect is strongest in sixth grade and in schools with longer grade spans and that the top dog effect is not explained by new students to a school or student height. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research finds that small high schools deliver better outcomes than large high schools for urban students. An important outstanding question is whether this better performance is gained at the expense of losses elsewhere: Does small school reform lift the whole district? We explore New York City’s small high school reform in which hundreds of new small high schools were built in less than a decade. We use rich individual student data on four cohorts of New York City high school students and estimate effects of schools on student outcomes. Our results suggest that the introduction of small schools improved outcomes for students in all types of schools: large, small, continuously operating, and new. Small school reform lifted all boats. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the effect of the human capital characteristics of co-ethnic immigrant communities on foreign-born students' math achievement. We use data on New York City public school foreign-born students from 39 countries merged with census data on the characteristics of the immigrant household heads in the city from each nation of origin and estimate regressions of student achievement on co-ethnic immigrant community characteristics, controlling for student and school attributes. We find that the income and size of the co-ethnic immigrant community has no effect on immigrant student achievement, while the percent of college graduates may have a small positive effect. In addition, children in highly English proficient immigrant communities test slightly lower than children from less proficient communities. The results suggest that there may be some protective factors associated with immigrant community members' education levels and use of native languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although rearranging school organizational features is a popular school reform, little research exists to inform policymakers about how grade spans affect achievement. This article examines how grade spans and the school transitions that students make between fourth and eighth grade shape student performance in eighth grade. The authors estimate the impact of grade span paths on eighth-grade performance, controlling for school and student characteristics and correcting for attrition bias and quality of original school. They find that students moving from K–4 to 5–8 schools or in K–8 schools outperform students on other paths. Results suggest four possible explanations for the findings—the number and timing of school changes, the size of within-school cohorts, and the stability of peer cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background/Context: High school reform is currently at the top of the education policy making agenda after years of stagnant achievement and persistent racial and income test score gaps. Although a number of reforms offer some promise of improving U.S. high schools, small schools have emerged as the favored reform model, especially in urban areas, garnering substantial financial investments from both the private and public sectors. In the decade following 1993, the number of high schools in New York City nearly doubled, as new "small" schools opened and large high schools were reorganized into smaller learning communities. The promise of small schools to improve academic engagement, school culture, and, ultimately, student performance has drawn many supporters. However educators, policy makers, and researchers have raised concerns about the unintended consequences of these new small schools and the possibility that students "left behind" in large, established high schools are incurring negative impacts. Research Design: Using 10 years (1993-2003) of data on New York City high schools, we examine the potential systemic effects of small schools that have been identified by critics and researchers. We describe whether small schools, as compared with larger schools, serve an easier-to-educate student body, receive more resources, use those resources differently, and have better outcomes. Further we examine whether there have been changes in segregation and resource equity across the decade contemporaneous with small-school reform efforts. Findings/Results: We find that, although small schools do have higher per-pupil expenditures, lower pupil-teacher ratios, and a smaller share of special education students than larger schools, their students are disproportionately limited English proficient and poor, and their incoming students have lower test scores. Thus, the evidence is mixed with respect to claims that small schools serve an easier-to-educate student body. Systemwide, we find that segregation is relatively stable, and although there have been some changes in the distribution of resources, they are relatively modest. Conclusions/Recommendations: If small schools do eventually promote higher achievement (considering their student mix and other factors that differentiate them from larger schools), many more will be needed to house the 91.5% of the students still attending large schools. Otherwise, strategies that work for the vast majority of students who do not attend small schools will need to be identified and implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the No Child Left Behind Act was intended to help "all students meet high academic standards," it is focused on subgroups of low-achieving students. The authors analyze the possible impact of the legislation's requirement for performance reporting by racial subgroup in light of the considerable racial segregation in U.S. schools. In particular, using data on elementary and middle schools in New York State. the authors show that the schools are so highly segregated that more than half are too homogeneous to report test scores for any racial or ethnic subgroups. In addition, they show that the racial achievement gap is greatest across segregated schools rather than within integrated ones. The authors analyze the characteristics of schools that are and are not accountable for subgroups, finding that urban schools and large schools are particularly likely to be accountable, and conclude with implications for the reach of the law and for incentives for school segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the literature on achievement differences as a framework and motivation, along with data on New York City students, we examine nativity differences in students’ rates of attendance, school mobility, school system exit, and special education participation. The results indicate that, holding demographic and school characteristics constant, foreign-born have higher attendance rates and lower rates of participation in special education than native-born. Among first graders, immigrants are also more likely to transfer schools and exit the school system between years than native-born, yet the patterns are different among older students. We also identify large variation according to birth region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although analyses of state school finance systems rarely focus on the distribution of funds to students of different races, the advent of racial discrimination as an issue in school finance court cases may change that situation. In this article, we describe the background, analyses, and results of plaintiffs' testimony regarding racial discrimination in Campaign for Fiscal Equity Inc. v. State of New York. Plaintiffs employed multiple regression and public finance literature to show that New York State's school finance system had a disparate racial impact on New York City students. We review the legal basis for disparate racial impact claims, with particular emphasis on the role of quantitative statistical work, and then describe the model we developed and estimated for the court case. Finally, we discuss the defendants' rebuttal, the Court's decision, and conclude with observations about the role of analysis in judicial decision making in school finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In New York City, where almost 14% of elementary school pupils are foreign-born and roughly half of these are "recent immigrants," the impact of immigrant students on school resources may be important. While immigrant advocates worry about inequitable treatment of immigrant students, others worry that immigrants drain resources from native-born students. In this article, we explore the variation in school resources and the relationship to the representation of immigrant students. To what extent are variations in school resources explained by the presence of immigrants per se rather than by differences in student educational needs, such as poverty or language skills, or differences in other characteristics, such as race? Our results indicate that, while schools resources decrease with the representation of immigrants, this relationship largely reflects differences in the educational needs of immigrant students. Although analyses that link resources to the representation of foreign-born students in 12 geographic regions of origin find some disparities, these are again largely driven by differences in educational need. Finally, we find that some resources increase over time when there are large increases in the percentage of immigrants in a school, but these results are less precisely estimated. Thus, elementary schools appear not to be biased either against or for immigrants per se, although differences in the needs of particular groups of immigrant students may lead to more (or fewer) school resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the large numbers of competing proposals for improving urban schools so that students perform better policymakers need to know budget as well as performance implications of proposed reforms. One n!form group with a large constituency suggests that high schools should enroll small numbers of students, but some policymakers worry that the costs of small schools are excessive. This paper contributes to the school size policy debate by using methods and data that combine budget and performance information, with the school as the unit of analysis. With data on budgets, graduates, and characteristics of students in New York City public high schools, we estimate 4-year budgets per graduate. We find that small academic and large high schools are similar in terms of budgets per graduate and that some vocational and "transfer" high schools have the highest budgets per graduate. Because the literature on school size indicates that small high schools are more effective for minority and poor students, the similarity in outcomes that small and large high schools produce suggests that policymakers might do well to support the creation of more small high schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the impact of social science research on school finance policy in the U.S. Formulation of social science research to public policy; Perspectives in evaluating the policy impact of social science research; Strengths of the perspectives.

Numerous value judgments are embedded in the standards utilized to evaluate whether a school finance system has become more or less equitable over time. A four-component framework is proposed to high light these value judgments in equity standards. Data from twenty states are analyzed to demonstrate that alternative value judgments affect the measurement of a state's movement toward or away from equity. Implications for policymakers and administrators are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores conceptual, methodological, and empirical issues in resource allocation at the intradistrict and school levels. With increased attention focused on policies and data related to resources within districts, it is important that analytical problems and potential solutions be debated by researchers. The article develops ways that equity concepts can apply at the school level, identifies a series of methodological issues, and includes an empirical analysis of vertical equity at the intradistrict and school levels in New York City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the measurement of the observed relationship between revenues and wealth in education in the U.S., what has been referred to as simple, ex post wealth neutrality. Among school finance researchers and policy analysts, the search for meaning of the term "wealth neutrality" has led to the ex ante-ex post and the simple-conditional dichotomies. Wealth neutrality takes on very different meanings depending on how choices about these dichotomies are made. Even having chosen one definition, simple ex post wealth neutrality, there are significant measurement issues that have not previously received adequate attention in the literature available to the researcher and policy analyst. The conclusions from the analyses presented in the paper are straightforward, although ways to take the conclusions into account in studies are not always easy and obvious. The primary conclusion is that the alternative simple ex post wealth neutrality measures capture different aspects of the wealth neutrality concept and the use of one measure alone or several measures independently can lead to serious problems of interpretation.