Search

Uncovering the effects of school racial composition on academic achievement is difficult, because racial mixing in the schools represents a complex mixture of government and family choices. While the goals of school integration legally inspired by Brown v. Board of Education are very broad, this paper focuses on the contribution of school racial composition to the racial and ethnic achievement. It uses a unique matched panel data set on individual Texas students and schools to identify the impacts of racial composition on academic achievement and to differentiate these from other aspects of school quality and from differences in student ability and family background that might drive any observed relationship between achievement and school demographic composition. Results show that having a higher percentage of black schoolmates has a strong adverse effect on black students' achievement, and the effects are highly concentrated in students who have shown high academic achievement in the early grades. Racial composition has a noticeably smaller effect on the achievement of lower ability Blacks, of Whites, and Hispanics, suggesting that the results are not a simple reflection of unmeasured school quality. The results are consistent with the view that black students exert peer pressure on others to under-perform and that a higher proportion of Blacks in a school may lead teachers to lower their expectations for all black students. (Contains 47 references.) (SM)

Many school districts experience difficulties attracting and retaining teachers, and schools in urban areas serving economically disadvantaged and minority students appear particularly vulnerable to these problems. This paper investigates factors that affect the probabilities that teachers will switch schools or exit the public schools entirely. Researchers used matched student/teacher panel data on Texas public elementary schools to gain a better understanding of the effects of salary and other school factors on teacher transitions. These data permitted a detailed description of student demographic and school characteristics and pre- and post-move comparisons for teachers who switched schools within Texas or left the Texas public schools. Teachers were divided by experience, school community type, ethnicity and other factors so researchers could examine differences in the responsiveness to salary and student characteristics on the basis of teacher experience, race, and ethnicity. Results indicate that teacher mobility is much more strongly related to characteristics of students, particularly race and achievement, than to salary, although salary exerts a modest impact once compensating differentials are taken into account. Non-black, non Hispanic teachers systematically prefer non-black, non-Hispanic students, while the opposite is true for black and Hispanic teachers. (Contains 56 references.) (SM)

Empirical analysis of peer effects on student achievement has been open to question because of the difficulties of separating peer effects from other confounding influences. While most econometric attention has been directed at issues of simultaneous determination of peer interactions, this paper argues that issues of omitted and mismeasured variables are likely to be more important. It controls for the most important determinants of achievement that will confound peer estimates by removing student and school-by-grade fixed effects in addition to observable family and school characteristics. The analysis also addresses the reciprocal nature of peer interactions and the interpretation of estimates based upon models using past achievement as the measure of peer group quality. The results indicate that peer achievement has a positive effect on achievement growth. Moreover, students throughout the school test score distribution appear to benefit from higher achieving schoolmates. On the other hand, the variance in achievement appears to have no systematic effect. Further research is recommended on the effects of peers on other social and economic outcomes, and more classroom level evidence is needed on the impact of ability grouping. (Contains 32 references.) (SM)

Most students change schools at some point in their academic careers, but some change very frequently, and some schools experience a great deal of turnover. Many researchers, teachers, and administrators argue that mobility harms students, particularly disadvantaged students in high turnover, inner city schools. However, economists emphasize the importance of Tiebout mobility in which parents change districts in pursuit of higher quality schools. Empirical research on mobility has yielded inconclusive results. This paper develops a general theoretical model that identifies school quality changes resulting from moving. The empirical analysis, which exploits the rich longitudinal data of the University of Texas at Dallas Texas Schools Project, disentangles the disruption effects associated with moves from changes in school quality. The results suggest that there is a small average increase in school quality for district switchers, while there is no evidence that those switching schools within districts obtain higher school quality on average. The results also show a significant externality from moves: students in schools with high turnover suffer a disadvantage, and the cost is largest for lower income and minority students who typically attend much higher turnover schools. (Contains 14 tables and 17 references.) (SM)

Suburban schools are generally of higher quality than the inner city schools that continue to serve a disproportionate share of black children. This study provided significant evidence that school quality, measured by the mean test scores for individual grades/campuses, has a large impact on the achievement of individual students. The analysis used data from the Texas Schools Microdata Panel, a panel database with more than two million students attending Texas public schools between 1990 and 1997. This result was obtained using two kinds of econometric models. In the first, school quality is included as a right side variable in value-added equations in which prior test scores and other socio-economic and program variables are used as control variables in ordinary least squares regressions. In the second, achievement gains are used as the dependent variable in individual fixed effects regressions for children who change schools. In these equations, changes in school quality and other time variant variables are included as right side explanatory variables. The estimates presented in this paper indicate that enabling the average black student to attend schools of average suburban quality rather than average inner city quality would eliminate between 12% and 30% of the current black-white achievement gap. An appendix contains additional data tables. (Contains 18 tables and 16 references.) (Author/SLD)

This paper draws on the matched panel data of the UTD Texas School Project to investigate how shifts in salary schedules affect the composition of teachers within a district. When trying to estimate the true relationship between teacher quality and salaries, four methodological problems typically intervene: measuring teacher quality; distinguishing between shifts in salary schedules and movements along a given schedule; determining how the recent history of pay levels, combined with current pay, influences the composition of teachers; and discerning the existence of compensating differentials for different working conditions, which complicates the interpretation of observed salary differentials across districts and states. The panel data permit separation of shifts in salary schedules from movement along given schedules, and, thus, the analysis is more closely related to existing policy proposals. In analyses both of teacher mobility and of student performance, teacher salaries were shown to have a modest impact. Teacher mobility was more affected by characteristics of the students (income, race, and achievement) than by salary schedules. Salaries were also weakly related to performance on teacher certification tests--appearing to be relevant only in districts doing high levels of hiring. The only significant relationship between salaries and student achievement held (implausibly) for existing experienced teachers but not for new hires or for probationary teachers. (Contains 54 references.) (RJM)

Charter schools have become a very popular instrument for reforming public schools, because they expand choices, facilitate local innovation, and provide incentives for the regular public schools while remaining under public control. Despite their conceptual appeal, evaluating their performance has been hindered by the selective nature of their student populations. This paper investigates the quality of charter schools in Texas in terms of mathematics and reading achievement and finds that, after an initial start-up period, average school quality in the charter sector is not significantly different from that in regular public schools. Perhaps most important, the parental decision to exit a charter school is much more sensitive to education quality than the decision to exit a regular public school, consistent with the notion that the introduction of charter schools substantially reduces the transactions costs of switching schools. Low income charter school families are, however, less sensitive to school quality than higher income families.

Much of education policy focuses on improving teacher quality, but most policies lack strong research support. We use student achievement gains to estimate teacher value-added, our measure of teacher quality. The analysis reveals substantial variation in the quality of instruction, most of which occurs within rather than between schools. Although teacher quality appears to be unrelated to advanced degrees or certification, experience does matter--but only in the first year of teaching. We also find that good teachers tend to be effective with all student ability levels but that there is a positive value of matching students and teachers by race. In the second part of the analysis, we show that teachers staying in our sample of urban schools tend to be as good as or better than those who exit. Thus, the main cost of large turnover is the introduction of more first year teachers. Finally, there is little or no evidence that districts that offer higher salaries and have better working conditions attract the higher quality teachers among those who depart the central city district. The overall results have a variety of direct policy implications for the design of school accountability and the compensation of teachers.

While the goals of the integration of schools legally mandated by "Brown v. Board of Education" are very broad, here we focus more narrowly on how school racial composition affects scholastic achievement. Uncovering this effect is difficult, because racial mixing in the schools is not an accident but rather an outcome of both government and family choices. Our evaluation, made possible by rich panel data on the achievement of Texas students, disentangles racial composition effects from other aspects of school quality and from differences in abilities and family background. The results show that a higher percentage of black schoolmates has a strong adverse effect on the achievement of blacks and, moreover, that the effects are highly concentrated in the upper half of the skill distribution. In contrast, racial composition has a noticeably smaller effect on achievement of blacks with lower initial achievement and of whites--strongly suggesting that the results are not a simple reflection of unmeasured school quality. The uneven distribution of blacks across school districts can explain a significant portion of the black-white achievement gap in Texas. [Discussion Paper also supported by the Packard Humanities Institute.]

Analyzed in this paper are the determinants of racial and ethnic segregation and their effects on the residence patterns of black and ethnic populations in Cleveland. The extent of current and past racial segregation in the Cleveland area is discussed. Particular attention is given to the influence of socioeconomic factors and ethnicity on residential segregation. Other determinants of racial segregation considered include workplace location, black preferences for segregation, and discriminatory practices. (Author/EB)