City School District Research Articles

Race-blind admissions, school segregation, and student outcomes

In 2007, the Supreme Court declared race-conscious school admissions unconstitutional. This paper provides the first evaluation of a related federal mandate where the Columbus City School District was forced to adopt a race-blind lottery system for its magnet schools. I explore the impact of the dramatic increase in racial segregation resulting from the mandate. More segregated schools spend less per-pupil, enroll lower achieving students, employ lower value-added teachers, and perpetuate “White flight” out of the district. Ultimately, segregation arising from mandated race-blind admissions causes student achievement and college attendance rates to decline.

OCR concerned with district's handling of harassment reports

Case name: Letter re: Park City School District, No. 08‐23‐1193 (OCR 03/20/24).

OCR concerned with district's handling of harassment reports

Case name: Letter re: Park City School District, No. 08‐23‐1193 (OCR 03/20/24).

Neighborhood Context as a Barrier to Sport Participation for Girls: Evidence From a Sport Diversity Index.

Evidence suggests neighborhood contexts play a vital role in shaping the availability and diversity of youth sport and participation rates, especially for African American or Black girls. Currently, no index captures interscholastic sport opportunities (eg, sport diversity) within and across school districts and specifically applied to African American or Black girls. To visualize the inequalities present in interscholastic sport opportunities for girls across school districts using a novel index in a selected study area of St Louis City and County, Missouri, and discuss the implications for African American or Black girls. Cross-sectional study. Database secondary analysis. Data for 47 public high schools in the 23 St Louis City and County school districts. We gathered data from the 2014-2018 American Community Survey and Missouri State High School Activities Association. We assessed sport diversity for girls by constructing a sport diversity index (SDI) that uses an entropy index as its foundation. Census-tract data were used to examine the association with neighborhood demographics and contributors to school district income and sport diversity. Descriptive spatial statistics were calculated to evaluate distributions in St Louis City and County, with the bivariate local indicator of spatial autocorrelation used to determine any correlations between variables of interest. The St Louis City school district, which has areas with high rates of renter-occupied housing and poverty and high percentages of non-Hispanic African American or Black students, had the lowest SDI for girls, contrasted with the school districts in St Louis County, which showed an inverse pattern on average. The SDI for girls was correlated with the percentages of renter-occupied housing and poverty. The SDI for girls was also correlated with race: an increasing presence of the non-Hispanic African American or Black population was associated with decreased sport diversity for girls. The SDI for girls demonstrated a spatial association with neighborhood-level determinants of sport-opportunity availability for non-Hispanic African American or Black girls in St Louis. The role of social and political determinants of health in shaping community context and resultant health in athletic training research, policy, and practice should be considered.

Learning with Leaders: Excellence for all students, districtwide: Luvelle Brown

Luvelle Brown, superintendent of the Ithaca City School District in New York, talks with James F. Lane about his work on leadership, equity, and transforming instruction. As an educator, he’s committed to promoting excellence for students who have been denied opportunities. As a district leader, he’s sought to bring greater diversity to leadership. He encourages educators to find joy in their mission and commit to doing the work.

Strategies to Better Identify Student Homelessness Using Data in an Urban School District

We tested 10 data-based strategies to better identify student homelessness in Camden City School District, which has a student body from minoritized backgrounds. We operationalized strategies through a research-practice partnership, following the federal homelessness definition. Data span 5 years (2014–15 through 2018–19), including integrated education, municipal, and health records. Nine strategies indicated significant unidentified student homelessness (min: 15; max: 5,008; p-values < .001). Consistent with homelessness, six strategies produced groups with lower attendance ( p-values < .01) and seven with increased school mobility ( p-values < .05). Homelessness was 34% greater in the most conservative interpretation, though counts could be as much as 454% greater. Student homelessness is more prevalent than recognized, data-based strategies can guide proactive outreach, and cross-system partnerships are warranted.

“I Don’t Really Feel Prepared for This Now That We’re Talking about it”: What is Educating for College and Career Readiness in an Urban District?

The purpose of this qualitative study is to better understand how urban high schools prepare their students of color (SoC) for “college and career readiness” through asking the following: What does educating for “college and career readiness” look like? How are students being educated for “college and career readiness”, and How do students learn about and interpret “college and career readiness?” With these central questions and responses from two Greenwood City School District (GCSD)* principals and nine GCSD students, we learn the focus within the “college and career readiness” paradigm is largely dedicated to student’s college preparation and occupational exposure, but not much in the way of introducing challenging aspects of tomorrow’s occupational landscape including neoliberalism, globalization, automation, and workplace discrimination. This study concludes with recommendations that education practitioners critically deconstruct the language used to imply sufficiency of the college degree in yielding reliable, secure employment for students of color, as well as encourage more transparency with students pertaining to what likely lies ahead in the workplace of tomorrow.

The state takeover of the Camden City District schools and students’ academic performance: A descriptive analysis

ABSTRACT In March 2013, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced a state takeover of the Camden City School District. Under state control, state appointed superintendents assumed powers customarily held by the board of education and implemented substantial changes to the district, including closing eleven district schools, eliminating more than a thousand teaching and other positions, and shifting almost half of all district students to renaissance charter schools. We examine the changes in students’ standardized test scores before and after the state takeover and find mixed results. We also find evidence that test scores for some grades were improving several years before the state takeover and that positive gains in test scores in a few subjects/grades in the period following the state takeover were occurring across all low income schools in New Jersey, not just in Camden. We address why these findings are at odds with political leaders’ positive perceptions of the takeover.

A Chance at the Arts: Assessment of NYC Department of Education’s ArtsCount as a Violation of Title VI Implementing Regulation

A Chance at the Arts: Assessment of NYC Department of Education’s ArtsCount as a Violation of Title VI Implementing Regulation

Organizational Commitment, Teachers' Empowerment, and Transformational Teaching of Public Elementary Schools in Laguna, Philippines

Teacher commitment is indeed an internal factor that motivates teachers to put more effort and energy into sustaining school involvement and to further improve and enhance their teaching strategies to attain their objectives. Thus, it is important to know the level of commitment, teachers' empowerment, and transformational teaching of teachers during this time of the pandemic. Transformational teaching entails developing dynamic interactions between teachers, students, and a body of shared knowledge. According to this viewpoint, teachers serve as intellectual coaches who construct student teams that work together with their teachers to master bodies of knowledge. These constructivist-based transformational teaching approaches help students develop new knowledge and actions. Teachers that employ constructivist theory as a theoretical framework assist students in becoming active participants in society and the global workplace. The sample of the study consisted of 551 teachers who responded on a representative of public elementary schools in Calamba, Cabuyao, Binan, and Sta. Rosa. Cluster sampling was used to collect the sample, and the city school districts served as the representative of the clusters. Ranking sampling was used to choose the participating schools and the teacher respondents. Each cluster was ranked based on population distribution and gender distribution to maintain an equal proportion of teachers' respondents across all participating schools in the four city school divisions. Teacher respondents were selected randomly to represent the sample of the study. The study mainly focuses on the level of organizational commitment, teachers’ empowerment to the level of transformational teaching. The findings showed that the components of organizational commitment and teachers' empowerment significantly foresee the relationship on transformational teaching of teachers in the four (4) City Schools Division in Laguna. As a result, when teachers demonstrate a high level of organizational commitment and teacher empowerment to the level of transformational teaching, it encourages teachers to stay committed to their field of work and expected to attain their objectives.

Helping schools prepare for and prevent the worst: A conversation with Jaclyn Schildkraut

About 95% of schools nationwide hold lockdown drills for students and staff in response to security concerns, including an active shooter. Jaclyn Schildkraut, the interim executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium, talks about the importance of performing lockdown drills in a trauma-informed way. Through her work and research with the Syracuse City School District, she recommends best practices and stresses the importance of training for school staff.

Self-efficacy and Social Settings Matter for Fostering Healthy Eating in Mexican Schoolchildren

ObjectiveTo identify differences in schoolchildren's self-efficacy for eating behaviors across social settings and self-efficacy sources favoring healthy and unhealthy eating. DesignA cross-sectional, mixed-methods study using self-efficacy and demographic surveys, focus groups, and school environment semistructured observations. SettingMorelos, Mexico, Cuernavaca City school district, public elementary schools in the National School Lunch Program. Participants and RecruitmentWe studied 274 fifth- and sixth-grade children from 8 elementary schools during the 2016–2017 school year. Variables MeasuredChildren's self-efficacy for healthy and unhealthy eating across 3 settings (school cafeteria, recess, and home). Children's perceptions about sources of self-efficacy, which favor their healthy or unhealthy eating (performance accomplishments, behavior modeling, verbal persuasion, and emotional or physiological states). Sociodemographic information was obtained from parents. AnalysisWe performed a variance components analysis with school and students within schools as random effects with paired t tests (quantitative data) and content analysis on the basis of the Social Cognitive Theory (qualitative data). ResultsSchoolchildren's self-efficacy for healthy eating differed across social settings, being greater in the school cafeteria than at recess or home, except for drinking water. On average, self-efficacy for unhealthy eating was lower in the cafeteria than in other studied settings. Performance achievements and behavior modeling were key sources of self-efficacy for healthy and unhealthy eating. Conclusion and ImplicationsSources of self-efficacy and social settings matter to understanding schoolchildren's healthy and unhealthy eating. Future interventions might consider developing collective efficacy among the school community and boosting children's participation in home meal planning. Further research could explore locus of control and other intrapersonal dimensions influencing self-efficacy.

A University and Middle School Mentor-Scholar Partnership

The State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego) and the Oswego City School district have created a campus-community partnership through a college program that matches SUNY Oswego students as mentors with at-risk youth in grades 7 and 8 in a structured environment in the school district. The structure is academically based for college students to earn credit based on the tenets of mentoring, youth development, and relationship building. The middle school students, or “mentees” come from an at-risk background that is academic, socially, or behaviorally based. The school district recommends students for inclusion in the program. This innovative program includes a course that is rich with the pedagogy of service-learning, builds leadership characteristics and teamwork through course discussions, workshops, and the mentormentee relationship. The community benefits with increased support to at-risk students and building a pipeline between the college and K–12 community. The Mentor-Scholar Program tracks K–12 impact through state assessments, grades, social-school success outcomes, college mentors course evaluations and grades. The program tracks the impact on college students through grade assessment and reflection. The program was formed five years ago and has grown from thirty mentors with sixty mentees to 120 mentors with 300 mentees this past semester. Initial research shows an increase in attendance and GPA for K–12 students enrolled in the program and leadership skill development for college students.

Statistical Analysis of The Effect of Participation in the Interdistrict Tinsley Voluntary Transfer Program On Student Academic Achievement

Academic outcomes are a centerpiece of desegregation literature, as desegregation is often viewed as a means to rectify systemic racial inequality in the education system. However, because a vast majority of desegregation programs in the United States happen within district, and not between districts, where there are the most racial divisions, existing research may not portray the full extent of what racial integration. Investigations into interdistrict desegregation may offer greater insights into the effects of racial integration and better school resources on individual minority students.
 This paper zooms into the Tinsley Voluntary Transfer, an interdistrict desegregation program allowing students in the minority Ravenswood City School District to transfer into neighboring Mid-Peninsula schools. In an effort to contextualize the existing literature on minority academic outcomes of desegregation to interdistrict transfer in specific, the research question posed is as follows: Is there a statistically significant difference in the academic performance of Tinsley transfer students and students who stayed within the Ravenswood district?
 To assess the relationship between these two groups, quantitative statistical analysis was performed on data sets of the standardized test scores from 3rd-8th grade of both Tinsley transfer students in the Menlo Park City School District and Ravenswood students who did not transfer out of the district. The result was that there is a statistically significant difference between groups, though excluding for 7th and 8th grade Math. The paper hypothesizes that this may be partially accounted for by the beginning of tracking in math courses at the Menlo Park district.

Social Deprivation and the Performance of Pedestrian Infrastructure for School Children: Identifying Need in the Putnam City School District, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Social disadvantage is thought to correlate with and might indeed be compounded by insufficient transport infrastructure. Additionally, the prevalence of pedestrian mode choice for trips is shown to be affected by levels of social disadvantage and vulnerability. For elementary school-age children and their guardians, these relationships could complicate daily mode choice and travel with respect to getting to school. This research explores the spatial dependence of socioeconomic and pedestrian network service indicators through a comparative spatial analysis of pedestrian level of service (LOS; Landis et al. 2001) and social deprivation index (SDI; Butler et al. 2013) across suburban census tracts comprising the Putnam City School District in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Results indicate statistically significant clusters where substandard pedestrian LOS and challenging socioeconomic conditions colocate at specific census tracts in the study area, along with significant effects demonstrated under spatial lag regression modeling. Implications for planning and public health are discussed, inclusive of both social (public awareness initiatives, walking school buses) and physical (improvements to the pedestrian environment) intervention.

Food Allergy in At-Risk Adolescents With Asthma: A Key Area for Focus

To determine the prevalence of food allergies (FAs) in adolescents with persistent asthma and see whether concurrent FAs contributed to asthma morbidity.In the study, the researchers included 342 adolescents (12–16 years) with severe asthma who attended the Rochester City School District and participated in the School-Based Asthma Care for Teens (SB-ACT) trial from 2014 to 2018.The parent trial, SB-ACT, aimed to decrease asthma morbidity by directly observing asthma medication administration in the Rochester City School District to high-risk adolescents identified as having persistent symptoms or poor control. Additionally, an 18-item FA questionnaire was also administered to the participants and caregivers that assessed a history of physician-diagnosed FAs versus self-reported FAs, foods in question, status of allergy (current or previous), and whether diagnostic testing of FA (skin test, blood tests, or food challenges) was performed.A total of 101 (29%) respondents reported FAs, with shellfish being the most common (38%), followed by peanut (34%) and tree nut (30%). A total of 58% of the adolescents did not have an epinephrine autoinjector (EAI), and only 13% reported carrying their EAI daily. There was no statistically significant difference in the mean asthma symptom-free days in patients with and without FA, but those patients with FA had a higher fractional excretion of nitric oxide. In a linear regression analysis, adolescents with FAs had more days of activity limitation in a 2-week period because of asthma and a higher odds of missing school attributed to asthma than those without a FA did.FAs are commonly found in adolescents with severe asthma and can lead to negative impacts on their quality of life, including increased activity limitations as well as missed days of school. Less than one-half of this cohort with FA had access to an EAI, which may increase near fatal outcomes.In this study, the authors highlight the need to screen adolescents with severe asthma for other atopic diseases, including FAs, to minimize adverse outcomes. Adolescents are at higher risk for fatal food-induced anaphylaxis when they have asthma and if epinephrine administration is delayed. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to not only screen for FAs in this population but ensure both prescriptions for and counseling of proper use of an EAI to avoid adverse outcomes.

Spatiotemporal trends in diabetes-related mortality by school district in the state of Michigan, United States.

OBJECTIVESThis study examined the spatiotemporal epidemiological status of diabetes-related death in relation to school district boundaries in the state of Michigan, United States.METHODSA retrospective observational study was conducted using death records spanning the years 2007–2014 in Michigan, with school districts as the geographic unit of analysis. Geocoding was performed for each death record. Cluster analysis used spatial autocorrelation with local Moran’s I, and spatiotemporal analysis used the Space Time Pattern Mining tool in ArcGIS Pro 2.1.RESULTSThe study revealed spatial clusters of high-high locations of diabetes-related mortality rate by school district in Michigan from 2007 to 2014. Spatiotemporal analysis showed grids with intensifying, consecutive, sporadic, and persistent hotspots of diabetes-related death in the Lansing, Royal Oak, Flint City, Berkley, Detroit City, East Lansing, South Lake, and Holt public school districts. These school districts should be prioritized for school-based diabetes prevention programsCONCLUSIONSThe study demonstrated the presence of various hotspots of diabetes-related deaths within the state of Michigan across the 8-year period of analysis. Understanding spatial and temporal hotspots could further improve our ability to evaluate diabetes burden across both time and space.

Japanese physical education teachers’ workplace learning at middle schools in urban city school districts

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to describe and explain Japanese middle school physical education teacher workplace experiences at urban city school districts. Participants were seven middle school physical education teachers (five males and two females) teaching physical education and coaching athletic teams in Japanese middle schools. Data sources included semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Three themes emerged from the data: (a) teachers’ commitment and dedication to students and schools, (b) the conflicting roles of teaching and coaching, and (c) difficulty of organising physical education professional development. The findings suggest that school districts need to overcome role conflicts in teaching and coaching students in middle school settings; to increase teacher intrinsic motivation for professional competencies; and to support collaboration between physical education teachers and school principals to meet students’ needs in physical education and on athletic teams, while keeping the workload and psychological health of the teachers at the forefront.

Collapse at the Confluence: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Binghamton City School District

This project analyzes student exam scores in the Binghamton City School District (BCSD) in comparison to New York State averages and to the school districts in Troy, Schenectady, Utica, and Niagara Falls. By collecting data from twenty-one different school years, provided by New York State on the New York State Education Data Site (NYSED), we illustrate a clear decline from the state mean in Binghamton’s academic performance that remains in line with the pattern of academic performance in the other four, previously mentioned, school districts. To look at why this is occurring, we collected population data from the U.S. Census Bureau; gathered budgeting and education data from NYSED and the United States Department of Education; and conducted interviews with district leaders to understand factors that influence student achievement. Our analysis reveals a rate of population mobility and a pattern of per-pupil expenditure - within the Binghamton community - that is disproportionately higher when compared to averages at the state level and with some of its peers. Our study indicates that ELA exam scores rise with the increase of expenditures, while math scores do not, and that total expenditures are more impactful than instructional. Research also points to poverty and parent engagement as influential factors on exam scores but is unable to make any definitive correlation. Despite what our interviews suggested would be the case, results do not support population mobility as a determining factor in exam outcomes. Our results suggest that policies that allocate expenditures more effectively, that keep parents involved, and that revise current testing standards when considered in conjunction with our literature review, are the most necessary state education reform for education. Results alone, however, are unable to point to any definitive causes behind BCSD’s underperformance or provide solutions.

A Combined Reach Out and Read and Imagination Library Program on Kindergarten Readiness.

Sharing books with preschoolers is known to improve kindergarten readiness. Both Reach Out and Read (ROR) and Dolly Parton's Imagination Library (DPIL) have shown positive effects on book sharing at home. We developed a novel combined ROR/DPIL program and examined the effect on kindergarten readiness assessment (KRA) scores. At urban ROR primary care sites, patients <5 years living in the city school district were enrolled from July 2015 through January 2019 in the ROR/DPIL program when seen for a clinic visit. The literacy subtest of the KRA was examined for participants entering kindergarten in the fall of 2016, 2017, and 2018. The "on-track" rate of participants was compared with nonparticipant groups. A total of 797 kindergarten-aged ROR/DPIL participants were matched to Ohio KRA scores for 2016, 2017, and 2018 school years. The percentages of students "on-track" on KRA literacy subtests increased significantly by cohort (2016, 42.9% [95% confidence interval (CI): 34.9%-50.9%] versus 2017, 50.9% [95% CI: 44.9%-56.9%] versus 2018, 58.3% [95% CI: 53.3%-63.3%], P = .004). ROR/DPIL participants were compared with a proportionate stratified random sample of 1580 non-ROR/DPIL peers. On-track in literacy did not significantly differ between groups (2016 [P = .262], 2017 [P = .653], 2018 [P = .656]), nor did they differ after restricting analysis to economically disadvantaged children (2016 [P = .191], 2017 [P = .721], 2018 [P = .191]). With these results, we suggest that a program combining literacy anticipatory guidance at clinic visits and more books in the home can potentially improve kindergarten readiness. Pediatric health care providers can play an important role in promoting kindergarten readiness through literacy promotion.