This study leverages naturally occurring lotteries for oversubscribed Boston Public Schools prekindergarten program sites between 2007 and 2011, for 3,182 children (M = 4.5 years old) to estimate the impacts of winning a first choice lottery and enrolling in Boston prekindergarten versus losing a first choice lottery and not enrolling on…

Diversity is core to what makes many cities vibrant, dynamic, adaptive and strong. Recently, Boston has gotten much more racially diverse, evolving from being only 20 percent people of color back in 1970 to 56 percent of color today. However, there's a way in which the rich tapestry of the city has eroded: Boston is rapidly losing families with…

This document provides the appendix to the report, "Charter School Funding: Support for Students with Disabilities" (see ED615383). "Charter School Funding" studies the funding surrounding the education of students with disabilities in public charter schools using data from fiscal year 2018 in 18 cities where charters hold a…

The aim of this article is to explore the influence of private foundation funding on arts policy and practice in two large, urban school districts: Boston Public Schools and Baltimore City Schools. Both school systems experienced declining enrollments and graduation rates, and in an era of high stakes testing and accountability, schools in both…

While there is a consensus that attending preschool better prepares children for kindergarten, evidence on the factors that sustain the preschool boost into the early elementary years is still emerging. To add to this literature, we use lottery data from applicants to oversubscribed schools in Boston Public Schools (BPS) prekindergarten program to…

In 2011, The Wallace Foundation launched the National Summer Learning Project (NSLP) to expand summer program opportunities for students in urban districts and to study the effectiveness of district-led summer programs and how they could be well implemented. Through the NSLP, The Wallace Foundation has provided support to public school districts…

This is the policy brief for the discussion paper, "Still Worth the Trip? School Busing Effects in Boston and New York." While choice systems offer students in segregated neighborhoods access to schools that may be more integrated and of higher quality, does busing lead to improved academic performance as measured by higher test scores…

The scholarly learning environment that characterizes the Mildred Avenue K-8 School, today seemed impossible five years ago, when the school was among the lowest performing in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Between 2004 and 2013, the average tenure for a principal at the school was just 18 months, with five new principals arriving during those…

During the summer, children from low-income families typically have fewer opportunities than their peers from more-affluent families for academic, cultural, athletic, and other activities. Such differences in opportunity can lead low-income students to fall behind their higher-income peers during summer. Free summer learning programs offering…

A controversial innovation within the field of teacher education is the relocation of teacher preparation to new graduate schools of education (nGSEs). nGSEs are state-authorized institutions of higher education that prepares teachers, endorse candidates for teacher licensure, and grant master's degrees, yet are not university-based. This paper…

This study examines growth in language and math skills during the summer before kindergarten; considers variation by family income, race/ethnicity, and dual language learner status; and tests whether summer center-based care sustains preschool gains. Growth in skills slowed during summer for all children, but the patterns varied by domain and…

This qualitative study reports on principals' perceptions regarding the teacher characteristics deemed most important for hiring effective teachers. Data for the study come from semi-structured interviews with principals working in urban public, Catholic, and Jewish schools. Results reveal a tendency among principals in all three sectors to focus…

In 2020, the Foundation for Child Development released "Getting it Right: Using Implementation Research to Improve Outcomes in Early Care and Education." The publication provides insights into the value of including implementation research in the study of early care and education (ECE) and its potential to improve programs and policies…

This study examines the perspectives of school psychologists as they expand their role to provide a comprehensive range of behavioral health services. Participants were in the first cohort of schools within an urban district that implemented this model of expanded service and were studied using mixed methods of semistructured interviews and scaled…

Over the past 15 years, cities across the country have experienced rapid growth in the number of public charter schools serving their students. When implemented with fidelity, the charter formula -- autonomy, choice, diversity of school designs, and real accountability -- produces continuous improvements in school quality, with impressive student…