Understanding the Institutional-Level Factors of Urban School Quality

• In Event: School Improvement in Different Contexts

Abstract

This study builds upon a recent yet diverse body of evidence pertaining to the relationship between school-level factors and school quality. Building upon a multi-level framework of school effectiveness, this investigation derives four quantifiable measures of school quality and subsequently tests them in an empirical model that relates school-level inputs to school-level measures of quality. Each model does so while simultaneously holding constant student, teacher, classroom, and residential neighborhood covariates as well as school budget data. By conducting this analysis on a longitudinal, school-level dataset of all 175 elementary schools within the School District of Philadelphia, this research provides new evidence that a range of school-level inputs has a significant relationship with school quality. Implications for urban schools are discussed.

Author

• Michael A. Gottfried, Loyola Marymount University