North-South Districts: the Geographic Distribution of Educational Success and Failure in New York City (original) (raw)
Related papers
From districts to schools: The distribution of resources across schools in big city school districts
Economics of Education Review, 2007
While the distribution of resources across school districts is well studied, relatively little attention has been paid to how resources are allocated to individual schools inside those districts. This paper explores the determinants of resource allocation across schools in large districts based on factors that reflect differential school costs or factors that may, in practice, be related to the distribution of resources. Using detailed data on school resources and student and school characteristics in New York City, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, we find that schools with higher percentages of poor pupils often receive more money and have more teachers per pupil, but the teachers tend to be less educated and less well paid, with a particularly consistent pattern in New York City schools. We conclude with implications for policy and further research.
School Diversity, School District Fragmentation and Metropolitan Policy
Teachers College Record
Background/Context: Over the past several decades, the structure of school segregation has changed significantly. In the past, students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds tended to be separated into different buildings within school districts; increasingly, however, students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds are likely to be separated into entirely separate districts . This growing problem of between-district segregation poses a unique set of challenges for districts and policymakers seeking to advance integration, as districts have administrative authority only over policies that cover their own boundaries. The changing configuration of school segregation, therefore, requires a better understanding of, and more creative solutions aimed at, this policy problem. Focus of Study: This article explores the dilemmas created by between-district segregation and school district fragmentation in terms of efforts to diversify schools. In our analysis, we examine four predominant approaches that have been used in city governance reform to address the problems of municipal fragmentation: annexation, consolidation, mobility programs, and metropolitan governance reform. Within each section, we examine the potential of each of these approaches as a solution to the problems associated with school district fragmentation. Data Collection and Analysis: We first review existing research to examine what is known empirically about between-district segregation, and the role of school district fragmentation as a contributing factor. We then review literature about policy efforts to address problems caused by fragmentation in noneducational domains.
2002
This study examined the role of school sub-city districts in determining the performance and efficacy of their member schools. A total of 846 low-and high-performing schools and sub-city districts were identified using a 3-year panel of data (1997-99) on New York City elementary and middle schools. These data were used to examine the differences in the school performance across school districts and to investigate the role of the district in shaping school performance. Results indicated that school districts did indeed matter. The estimated district fixed effects suggested that school districts had an important role in school performance, even when they had no revenue raising responsibility. The study examined whether that effect was due to unobservable, time invariant district characteristics or differences in the measurable characteristics of the districts, and it found that the number of middle schools, the level of per pupil spending, and the ways that resources were spent were the most significant factors. The study concludes that accountability systems need to be designed to recognize the role of school districts and to hold them accountable for their performance as well. Tables are appended. (Contains 15 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.
Toward a Theory of Equitable Federated Regionalism in Public Education
2017
School quality and resources vary dramatically across school district boundary lines. Students who live mere miles apart have access to disparate educational opportunities based on which side of a school district boundary line their home is located. Owing in large part to metropolitan fragmentation, most school districts and the larger localities in which they are situated are segregated by race and class. Further, because of a strong ideological preference for localism in public education, local government law structures in most states do not require or even encourage collaboration between school districts in order to address disparities between them. As a result, the combination of metropolitan fragmentation and localism in public education leads to the exclusion of poor and minority students from access to high-quality school districts, which are largely clustered in more affluent and predominately white localities. This Article contends that, given the raceand class-based exclus...
A Geographical Perspective on Inequality: The New York City School Funding Controversy
Journal of Geography, 2003
Students often ask whether the examples we give as instructors have any relevance to their worlds, to their lives. Too often the answer is no. This paper describes a case that is obviously pertinent to both secondary and university students and their instructors: The legal battle over equality and racial discrimination in the New York City School system presents not simply a rich field for geographical consideration but also a pertinent one. It brings to students and their instructors a complex of economic, legal, and social issues played across a discrete spatial surface. As importantly, it offers a case study exploring the difficulties of both defining and then achieving distributive justice in post-modern environments in a context students and their instructors will recognize as relevant and timely. The discussion that results may be useful in economic, legal, locational, and social geographic instruction.
School Performance and Resource Use: The Role of Districts in New York City
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
This study examines the role of school sub-city districts in determining the performance/efficiency of their member schools. The study identifies low and high performing schools and sub-city districts using a three-year panel of data on New York City elementary and middle schools. The results suggest that districts 'matter' to school performance, even when they have no revenue raising responsibility. The implication is that accountability systems need to be designed to recognize the role of school districts, and hold them accountable for their performance as well.