Research
Manuscripts Under Review
with Leanna Stiefel & Amy Ellen Schwartz
Students with disabilities (SWDs) educated in traditional public schools alongside general education students (GENs) typically move to middle school in sixth grade, rather than continuing in a K-8/12. The documented negative effects of this move on GEN academic outcomes suggests similar negative—and perhaps larger—effects on SWDs. Using an instrumental variables strategy and NYC data on nine cohorts of students, we find the middle school transition causes a 0.30 (0.16) standard deviation decline in SWD math (ELA) performance and increases grade retention. Low-income SWDs and SWDs with a specific learning disability or emotional disturbance fare worse. However, the move does not widen the SWD-GEN gap, suggesting the need to ease the middle school transition for all students.
with Leanna Stiefel, Syeda Sana Fatima, & Joeseph R. Cimpian
There has been an explosion of special education research and new policies surrounding the topic of racial and ethnic disproportionality. Some recent research shifts focus to whether school context moderates findings (e.g., is a Black student less likely than a White student to receive special education services as the proportion of a school’s Black students increases?). We extend this emerging literature using eight years of elementary student-and school-level data from NYC public schools, examining more school contextual moderators, expanding racial categories, and distinguishing between cross-sectional and over-time differences. We find that student racial/ethnic composition, teacher racial composition, school size, concentration of poor students, and teachers’ perceptions of school climate all moderate disproportionality. These school context factors appear to be particularly salient for the classification of Black students, and most of these associations are driven by differences across schools, suggesting new avenues for researchers and levers for policy.
Working Papers
The Impact of New School Construction on Student Outcomes in New York City
Examining Three Models for Supporting Students Who Experience Homelessness: Evidence from New York City
with Zitsi Mirakhur, Kathryn Hill, & Kristin Black
Inequities in Federal Funding for Homeless Students? Characteristics of School Districts Receiving McKinney-Vento Funding
Does Special Education Work? Evidence from Large Administrative Data Sets
with Leanna Stiefel
Staying Put: Positive Spillovers on Teacher Retention from a Middle School Science Initiative
with Menbere Shiferaw & Meryle Weinstein
The Urban Advantage: Impact on Student Test Scores
with Menbere Shiferaw & Meryle Weinstein