In the spring of 2007, the New York City Department of Education announced an ambitious plan to change the way it distributes resources across its more than 1,400 schools. The plan, known as the “Fair Student Funding” initiative, is intended to change funding methods in two ways: first, by...

This paper explores the determinants of resource allocation across schools in large districts and examines options for improving resource distribution patterns. Previous research on intra-district allocations consistently reveals resource disparities across schools within districts, particularly...

This paper explores the determinants of resource allocation across schools in large districts and examines options for improving resource distribution patterns. Previous research on intra-district allocations consistently reveals resource disparities across schools within districts, particularly...

United States public schools in the first decade of the twenty-first century are faced with increasing demands for improving performance; simultaneously, government budgets are stagnant or shrinking. Thus it is particularly important to consider ways in which schools and school districts can use...

While academic researchers and policymakers debate the relative merits of ranking public schools and the alternative methodologies for doing so, classifications of public schools have become a feature of the educational landscape. In many cases, the goal is to distinguish the "best" schools or...

[...]Nonetheless, not all the news is bad. As we describe in detail,our work on New York City’s public schools—which includesextensive research on immigrant children—and our separate work on school reform offer several reasons for optimism.First, immigrant students, who might be viewed as...

The purpose of this report is threefold: First to develop measures of alternative types of student mobility; second to document the magnitudes of each type of mobility in aggregate and by student income, race/ethnicity, and immigrant status; and third to analyze how mobility of different types...

One of the more prominent features of the federal No Child Left Behind Act is the requirement that schools and districts track the performance of subgroups of students. While the law identifies several subgroups, including low-income and English-language learners, the low performance of black...

In New York City, elementary and middle school students speak a wide variety of languages in their homes (167) and come from a vast number of countries (192). Over 1 in 10 children are limited English proficient (LEP) and another 3 in 10 are English proficient and from homes where languages...