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Syracuse University

Center for Policy Research

Education

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Using Pupil Transportation Data To Explore Educational Inequities And Outcomes: A Case Study From New York City, Sarah Cordes, Samantha Trajkovski, Christopher Rick, Meryle Weinstein, Amy Ellen Schwartz Dec 2021

Using Pupil Transportation Data To Explore Educational Inequities And Outcomes: A Case Study From New York City, Sarah Cordes, Samantha Trajkovski, Christopher Rick, Meryle Weinstein, Amy Ellen Schwartz

Center for Policy Research

This article explores how researchers can use pupil transportation data to explore key questions about the role of transportation in educational access and equity, such as how students get to school and the effect of transportation on student outcomes. We first describe different sources of transportation data that are available to researchers, provide a brief review of relevant literature, and discuss potential sources of measurement error in pupil transportation data. Next, we use administrative data from New York City to illustrate how pupil transportation data can be used to understand transportation eligibility and assignment as well as to describe the …


Towering Intellects? Sizing Up The Relationship Between Height And Academic Success, Stephanie Coffey, Amy Ellen Schwartz Dec 2021

Towering Intellects? Sizing Up The Relationship Between Height And Academic Success, Stephanie Coffey, Amy Ellen Schwartz

Center for Policy Research

Do tall students do better in school? While a robust literature documents higher earnings among taller people, we know little about the potential academic origins of the height earnings gradient. In this paper, we use unique student-level longitudinal data from New York City (NYC) to examine the link between height and academic outcomes, shedding light on underlying mechanisms. The centerpiece of our empirical work is a regression linking academic outcomes to height, measured as a z-score normalized to same grade/sex peers within schools. We estimate a meaningful height gradient for both boys and girls in ELA and math achievement in …


What Makes A Classmate A Peer? Examining Which Peers Matter In Nyc Elementary Schools, William C. Horrace, Hyunseok Jung, Jonathan L. Pressler, Amy Ellen Schwartz Nov 2021

What Makes A Classmate A Peer? Examining Which Peers Matter In Nyc Elementary Schools, William C. Horrace, Hyunseok Jung, Jonathan L. Pressler, Amy Ellen Schwartz

Center for Policy Research

Generalizing the group interaction model of Lee (2007), we identify and estimate the effects of student level social spillovers on standardized test performance in New York City (NYC) elementary schools. We leverage student demographic data to construct within-classroom social networks based on shared student characteristics, such as a gender or ethnicity. Rather than aggregate shared characteristics into a single network matrix, we specify additively separate network matrices for each shared characteristic and estimate city-wide peer effects for each one. Conditional on being in the same classroom, we find that the most important student peer effects are shared ethnicity, gender, and …


Technical Efficiency Of Public Middle Schools In New York City, William C. Horrace, Michah W. Rothbart, Yi Yang Dec 2020

Technical Efficiency Of Public Middle Schools In New York City, William C. Horrace, Michah W. Rothbart, Yi Yang

Center for Policy Research

Using panel data and a “true” fixed effect stochastic frontier model, we estimate persistent and transient technical inefficiency in mathematics (Math) and English Language Arts (ELA) test score gains in NYC public middle schools from 2014 to 2016. We compare several measures of transient technical inefficiency and show that around 58% of NYC middle schools are efficient in Math gains, while 16% are efficient in ELA gains. Multivariate inference techniques are used to determine subsets of efficient schools, providing actionable decision rules to help policymakers target resources and incentives.


Genetic Risks, Adolescent Health And Schooling Attainment, Vikesh Amin, Jere R. Behrman, Jason M. Fletcher, Carlos A. Flores, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Hans-Peter Kohler Jul 2020

Genetic Risks, Adolescent Health And Schooling Attainment, Vikesh Amin, Jere R. Behrman, Jason M. Fletcher, Carlos A. Flores, Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Hans-Peter Kohler

Center for Policy Research

We provide new evidence on the effect of adolescent health behaviors/outcomes (obesity, depression, smoking, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)) on schooling attainment using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. We take two different approaches to deal with omitted variable bias and reverse causality. Our first approach attends to the issue of reverse causality by using health polygenic scores (PGSs) as proxies for actual adolescent health. Second, we estimate the effect of adolescent health using sibling fixed-effects models that control for unmeasured genetic and family factors shared by siblings. We use the PGSs as additional controls in …


School Finance, Equivalent Educational Expenditure, And Income Distribution: Equal Dollars Or Equal Chances For Success?, Kathryn Wilson, Kristina T. Lambright, Timothy M. Smeeding Jan 2004

School Finance, Equivalent Educational Expenditure, And Income Distribution: Equal Dollars Or Equal Chances For Success?, Kathryn Wilson, Kristina T. Lambright, Timothy M. Smeeding

Center for Policy Research

This paper breaks new ground in the debate on school finance and equality of per pupil school expenditures. We are able to allocate expenditures per pupil at the *individual* student and family income level. This allows us to examine both student and school district characteristics and to assess several measures of equality of expenditure across the income distribution of parents and by funding sources. We find a surprising degree of equality in the actual amounts expended per child in low- vs. high-income families. But adjusting for student needs to reach equivalent education expenditures results in much greater inequality over the …


Estimating The Cost Of An Adequate Education In New York, William Duncombe Jan 2002

Estimating The Cost Of An Adequate Education In New York, William Duncombe

Center for Policy Research

The New York State Board of Regents and Commissioner of Education have identified a set of clear performance standards for students in New York State that matches the knowledge and skills they will need to function successfully as productive citizens in the 21st century. To match these standards, the New York State Department of Education has developed new Regents Examinations, which all students will be required to pass to graduate from high school, and new examinations in 4th and 8th grades that serve as important intermediate checkpoints in assessing student progress. Justice Leland DeGrasse wrote in *Campaign for Fiscal Equity …


Does School District Consolidation Cut Costs?, William Duncombe, John Yinger Jan 2001

Does School District Consolidation Cut Costs?, William Duncombe, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

Over the last 50 years, consolidation has dramatically reduced the number of school districts in the United States, and state governments still recommend consolidation, especially in rural school districts, as a way to improve school district efficiency. However, state policies encouraging consolidation are often challenged on the grounds that they do not lead to cost savings and instead foster learning environments that harm student performance. Existing evidence on this topic comes largely from educational cost functions, which indicate that instructional and administrative costs are far lower in a district with 3,000 pupils than in a district with 100 pupils. However, …