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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]

The article examines the relationship between the narrowing gap of teacher qualifications and its implication for student achievement in high-poverty schools in New York City. It discusses the teacher qualifications distribution in schools, the effect of the changing pattern of teacher qualifications to student achievement, and the implications for improving program and policies for highly effective teachers. The analysis of the relationship is extracted from teachers' background, educational attainment, certifications, work experience and the students' relevant examination scores, lagged scores, student characteristics which have been drawn from a student-level database. Results showed that the changes in teachers' qualifications had a significant effect to student achievement.