Place-Based Education Investment: Promise Neighborhoods and Student Academic Outcomes (Poster 18)

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education Research: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

There is evidence of a substantial place-based turn in federal policymaking in the United States over the past quarter century. The largest place-based education policy is the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods program. Research indicates that focusing on schools alone may not be sufficient to transform the educational landscape in the U.S. Instead, interventions like Promise Neighborhoods aimed at the entire ecosystem where schools are embedded may be the most prudent way to address the tapestry of societal inequalities that affect students and their subsequent academic outcomes. Employing quasi-experimental methods, I estimate Promise Neighborhood effects using Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) data. Because place-based policies have the potential to transform neighborhood conditions, in both favorable and unfavorable ways, they have important implications for durable spatial inequalities in the U.S. that are congruent with academic achievement gaps. I contribute to research that explores the spatial clustering of disadvantage and the ways that these conditions shape educational outcomes and access to opportunity.

Author

• Alexandra Cooperstock, Cornell University