Educators and researchers have long sought to understand--and illuminate--factors outside of school that shape students' educational outcomes. In 2019, the Research Alliance published a policy brief ("Aggressive Policing and Academic Outcomes: Examining the Impact of Police "Surges" in NYC Students' Home Neighborhoods,"…

Each year, more than 55,000 students graduate from the public high schools run by the New York City Department of Education (DOE); 58,000 did so in school year 2019-20. In percentage terms, the city's cohort graduation rate--that is, the percentage of entering ninth-graders who graduated within four years--has increased steadily from the early…

The present paper uses a rich dataset based on naturally-occurring lotteries for 68 new small non-selective high schools in New York City, which we refer to as small schools of choice (SSCs), to address two related questions: (1) What high school features are promising levers for increasing graduation rates for disadvantaged students? and (2) What…

"Breaking Barriers" shows how to redesign high schools so that all students can move on to college and successful careers. In a negation of the American Dream, a child's zip code is currently a far better predictor of success than hard work, intelligence, or resilience. This book tells the story of a school model that focuses on equity…

Low-income students, many of whom reside in urban environments, often lack the support they need to prepare for postsecondary education, identify the best fit schools, apply for financial aid, enroll and persist in their studies, and, ultimately, graduate with a degree. Since 2014, a university school counseling department and a New York City high…

By law, a student's admission to one of New York City's eight elite high schools is determined by his or her score on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT). Only a very small number of black and Hispanic students make the cut, a fact that has led Mayor Bill de Blasio to engineer what he regards as a more equitable racial distribution…

In 2008, a diverse group of New York City leaders--including representatives from the NYC Department of Education, the teacher and administrator unions, the philanthropic and business communities, and New York University--came together to establish the Research Alliance for New York City Schools. Since that time, the Research Alliance has worked…

Much has been written about the controversy surrounding performance-based school closures, but there has been no rigorous assessment of their impact on student achievement. Does the closure process harm students who are enrolled in a school while it is being phased out? Are future students better-off because a low-performing option has been…

In this paper, we show that the design and decentralized, school-based scoring of New York's high school exit exams--the Regents Examinations--led to the systematic manipulation of test sores just below important proficiency cutoffs. Our estimates suggest that teachers inflate approximately 40 percent of test scores near the proficiency cutoffs.…

Like other major school districts throughout the country, the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) has shifted its focus over the last decade from holding high schools accountable for graduation rates to holding them accountable for rates of college and career readiness. There are two major challenges facing both research and policy…

The growing cost of college is one of the most significant barriers to completion. However, research shows that frequent, intensive advising, combined with financial and other support, can make a tremendous difference in helping students complete. For two years, TICAS has worked with a group of rigorously evaluated organizations across the country…

Beginning in 2002, with the election of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City's Department of Education undertook an unprecedented overhaul of the largest school district in the United States. Over the next 10 years the Department of Education closed more than 25 large, underperforming high schools, and created almost 200 new, small high schools,…

In today's digital age, it is widely accepted that effective use of data is essential to improving just about anything, and increasing college and career success is no exception. Yet, despite its proliferation, student information remains surprisingly underutilized, even in efforts to ease the critical transition from high school to college. This…

U.S. social programs, set up to address important problems, often fall short by funding specific models/strategies ("interventions") that are not effective. When evaluated in scientifically-rigorous studies, social interventions in K-12 education, job training, crime prevention, and other areas are frequently found ineffective or…

City Year is a learning organization committed to the rigorous evaluation of its "Whole School Whole Child" model, which trains and deploys teams of AmeriCorps members to low-performing, urban schools to empower more students to reach their full potential. A third-party study by Policy Studies Associates (PSA) examined the impact of…