NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Back to results
ERIC Number: ED664665
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2022-Dec
Pages: 3
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Still Worth the Trip? School Busing Effects in Boston and New York. Policy Brief
Joshua Angrist; Guthrie Gray-Lobe; Clemence Idoux; Parag Pathak
Blueprint Labs
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 and college enrollment? This study examines causal effects of school travel on integration and academic achievement in Boston and New York City. The study finds that students who attend schools outside their neighborhoods do indeed enjoy greater academic success, but the impact of school travel disappears after accounting for individual academic motivation and family resources. Since such students are likely to perform better regardless of which schools they attend, their inclusion in the study results in selection bias. The Blueprint study eliminates selection bias by exploiting the random assignment integral to the Boston and New York public school choice processes. The Blueprint study finds that school travel does increase racial integration. Black and Hispanic students who travel attend schools with a higher share of white and Asian students. As a result, they are less likely to attend a racially isolated school, that is, one where Black and Hispanic students exceed 90 percent of enrollment. However, travel generates little change in test scores or college attendance. Why? The study finds that the distant schools are only slightly better, on average, than those in their neighborhood. New York spends more than $1 billion a year on school transportation. The Blueprint study suggests a cost-saving shift toward neighborhood schools has trade-offs: it would likely have no significant impact on educational outcomes for Black and Hispanic students but would boost integration.
Blueprint Labs. 30 Wadsworth Street. Cambridge, MA 02142. e-mail: contact@mitblueprintlabs.org; Web site: https://blueprintlabs.mit.edu/
Related Records: ED664664
Publication Type: Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education; Elementary Education; Grade 6; Intermediate Grades; Middle Schools; Grade 9; High Schools; Junior High Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Blueprint Labs
Identifiers - Location: Massachusetts (Boston); New York (New York)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A