Search

Many English Language Learners (ELLs) migrate to the United States at older ages and administrators must choose a grade in which to place these new entrants as soon as they register for school. In this study, I estimate the effect of grade placement on the short-term academic performance of ELLs who enroll in the Miami-Dade County Public School system between the ages of 7 and 12 using a district policy that determines grade placement decisions for newcomers by their birthdate relative to September 1. The results suggest some benefits to being placed in the lower of the two grades for students’ achievement in mathematics, but no signs of benefits on other academic outcomes, including reading achievement, grade promotion, and exit from ELL status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses Florida administrative data to evaluate the role that public high schools play in the growing female advantage in college enrollment. We first show evidence of gender sorting across public high schools that is beyond what one would observe if students were randomly assigned to their schools. Using regression and decomposition techniques, we then find that across-school gender sorting explains 12% and 16% of females’ higher rates of enrollment among Hispanic and Black students, respectively. This relatively large contribution of high schools to gender disparities in college enrollment among Black and Hispanic students has implications for educators at all levels. [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]

In 1975, the Puerto Rican community successfully sued the New York City Department of Education, mandating the city to provide bilingual education to its Spanish-speaking English learner (EL) students. The settlement, known as the 'Aspira Consent Decree,' has been amended over time to include EL students of all language groups and now requires public schools that have at least 15 students of the same language group in two contiguous grades to offer bilingual education. Yet observational studies of bilingual education classrooms in the city document that Spanish-speaking EL students may be the only language group that receives native-language instruction, while students from other language groups who are enrolled in bilingual education primarily receive English instruction. I use this difference in treatment dosage to estimate the effect of bilingual education on the time that it takes students to learn English. Students who enroll in bilingual education classrooms learn English less quickly, but the effect of bilingual education is the same for Spanish-speaking and other students, implying that negative selection mechanisms are at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers new directions in measuring racial isolation in schools. The most widely used measurement approach is to examine the mean on the distribution of school percentage non-White across non-White students (the isolation rate) or the percentage of non-White students in schools with large shares of non-Whites (e.g., 90% or more) at a single point in time. Using data on NewYork City public school students, I discuss the complexity that is revealed when school officials and researchers consider the following three dimensions of racial isolation: between classrooms, over time, and among non-White students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which investigates race, poverty, and gender disparities in taking advanced courses using 2 statewide data cohorts for public high school students in Florida. The results of the study show higher rates of advanced course-taking among whites, females, and non-poor students, and especially high rates of advanced course-taking for Asian students. It cites that when the pre-high school characteristics of the students are controlled, it substantially reduces poverty gaps, Asian-white gaps, and female-male gaps. Moreover, black and Hispanic students go to high schools that improve their probability of advanced course taking relative to white students.

Gaps in service coordination between child welfare and other child-serving agencies are well documented. This article examines the gap between the child welfare and juvenile justice systems and discusses a program, Project Confirm, designed to reduce the problems associated with this gap. Project Confirm aims to improve cooperation between juvenile justice and child welfare agencies to prevent the unnecessary detention of arrested foster children in secure facilities. The program's design is outlined, and implementation statistics and government partner perceptions of the program in its first year of operations are provided. The article also identifies future challenges to implementation and discusses the broader implications of the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic performance of foreign-born youth in the United States is well studied, yet little is known about whether and how foreign-born students influence their classmates. In this article, I develop a set of expectations regarding the potential consequences of immigrant integration across schools, with a distinction between the effects of sharing schools with immigrants who are designated as English language learners (ELL) and those who are not. I then use administrative data on multiple cohorts of Florida public high school students to estimate the effect of immigrant shares on immigrant and native-born students' academic performance. The identification strategy pays careful attention to the selection problem by estimating the effect of foreign-born peers from deviations in the share foreign-born across cohorts of students attending the same school in different years. The assumption underlying this approach is that students choose schools based on the composition of the entire school, not on the composition of each entering cohort. The results of the analysis, which hold under several robustness checks, indicate that foreign-born peers (both those who are ELL and those who are non-ELL) have no effect on their high school classmates' academic performance.