Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

Impact Of Covid-19 On Households With Children, Alejandra Muñoz-Rivera, Jason Jabbari, Stephen Roll, Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Social Policy Institute Research

The COVID-19 pandemic caused major disruptions in employment, child care and education. As a result, both parents and children experienced a variety of hardships in their work and education. While these hardships had reverberating effects throughout households, they were not equally distributed across families with children. In this brief, we explore the effects of COVID-19 on families with children, highlighting unaddressed areas of need, as well as potential points of intervention. In this study we find:

• Almost one-quarter (22%) of families experienced job or income loss as a result of child care disruptions, which was especially prevalent in households with …

The Socioeconomic Impacts Of Covid-19 Study: Survey Methodology Report, Stephen Roll, Sam Bufe, Yung Chun, Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Social Policy Institute Research

The Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19 Survey uniquely documents the social and economic impacts of a global pandemic as people experienced the global pandemic. These findings can inform social, economic and health policies now and in the future. Though the data from the survey are not publicly available, they are freely available on a limited basis to interested researchers. If you or your organization are interested in accessing the cleaned and coded survey data, or would like more information about the survey, please reach out to the Social Policy Institute at.

Student And Teacher Diversity In The Mountain West, Marie A. Falcone, Guadalupe De La Rosa, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

K-12 Education

This fact sheet highlights public K-12 teacher and student diversity in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. We explore data from Michael Hansen and Diana Quintero’s “Mountain West states face growing teacher diversity gaps” a 2018 Brookings Institution report. Specifically, we explore the teacher and student population in Mountain West states by race, revealing a disproportionate gap between students of color and teachers of color.

“Take My Word For It”: Group Texts And Testimonials Enhance State And Federal Student Aid Applications', Jason Jabbari, Stephen Roll, Sam Bufe, Jessica Mckay

Social Policy Institute Research

"As the cost of college continues to rise, it has become increasingly important for students to apply for financial aid. However, many students are unaware of the benefits of FAFSA. We launched a field experiment with a non-profit organization to explore the impact of text message interventions on FAFSA application rates. 2,236 potential students were randomized into three groups: a control group that focused on reminders for upcoming deadlines, a treatment group that focused on benefits-framed messaging, and a second treatment group that added social proofing and norming. Each group received 8 text messages from late September 2020 to early …

Brain Drain And Higher Education Capacity: A Case Study Of Nevada And The Western Undergraduate Exchange, Marie A. Falcone

Student Research

Policy initiatives such as the Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE), a regional tuition saving agreement among colleges and universities operating in the western states, have the ability to increase mobility and promote human capital attainment. This brief will be focusing exclusively on how Nevada’s higher education system and related programs, specifically the WUE, can be improved to further attract and attain a higher-skilled workforce. This paper will cover a literature review of brain drain and its effects, investigate Nevada’s relationship with human capital and the WUE, as well as offer policy recommendations to improve attainment.

The Issue Of Unemployment Among People With Disabilities, Angelina C. Pagano

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

The rate of unemployment for people with disabilities continues to rise greatly above that of people without disabilities. The issue seems to be exacerbated by employer biases and concerns which are not supported in the face of evidence. A lack of employer education on disability related subjects causes this misconception among both employers and the public as a whole. To resolve the underlying problem of miseducation, an increase in the self-identification of people with disabilities is necessary to provide researchers with data to assist in the formation of a revised curriculum.

Mental Health In Music: Why Are We Not Talking About It?, Christian Pence

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

The music business has taken many hits over the past 20 years, and we are seeing musicians slowly going extinct. There are so many factors that are hurting musicians, and workers in the music business. Back in the 80’s and 90’s, we were investing in music like no tomorrow. So many concerts were happening, and so many Broadway shows were going on. We were really supporting our musicians, and we were helping them in any way we could. But society, has not been investing in musicians, causing certain problems, like financial stability, mental health problems, and making music more of …

Hazardous Weather Communication En Español: Challenges, Current Resources, And Future Practices, Joseph E. Trujillo-Falcón, Orlando Bermúdez, Krizia Negrón-Hernández, John Lipski, Elizabeth Leitman, Kodi Berry

NOAA Technical Reports and Related Materials

According to recent Census data, the Hispanic or Latino population represents nearly 1 in 5 Americans today, where 71.1% of these individuals speak Spanish at home. Despite increased efforts among the weather enterprise, establishing effective risk communication strategies for Spanish-speaking populations has been an uphill battle. No frameworks exist for translating weather information into the Spanish language, nor are there collective solutions that address this problem within the weather world. The objective of this article is threefold. First, the current translation issue in Spanish is highlighted. Through research conducted at the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center, situations are revealed where regional …

Internet Connectivity Among Indigenous And Tribal Communities In North America - A Focus On Social And Educational Outcomes, Christopher S. Yoo, Leon Gwaka, Muge Haseki

All Faculty Scholarship

Broadband access is an important part of enhancing rural community development, improving the general quality of life. Recent telecommunications stimulus projects in the U.S. and Canada were intended to increase availability of broadband through funding infrastructure investments, largely in rural and remote regions. However, there are various small, remote, and rural communities, who remain unconnected. Connectivity is especially important for indigenous and tribal communities to access opportunities for various public services as they are generally located in remote areas. In 2016, the FCC reported that 41% of U.S. citizens living on tribal lands, and 68% of those in the rural …

Advancing Veteran Entrepreneurship Through Education, Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This presentation provides an overview of how veteran entrepreneurship can be bolstered by education.