With the financial support of several large foundations and the federal government, creating small schools has become a prominent high school reform strategy in many large American cities. While some research supports this strategy, little research assesses the relative costs of these smaller...

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...

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...

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...

Major increases in immigration and the shift in immigrant origins over the past three decades have substantially changed the composition of New York City's public schools. Unlike their primarily European predecessors, today's immigrant students come from countries all over the world, speak a...