Suburban Schools' Superiority? Perception Versus Reality and the Consequences for Spatial Stratification

• In Event: Spatial Stratification. Nefarious Intent: The Impact of Neighborhood Racial Change on Enrollment and Student Assignment

Abstract

Suburban schools have long been assumed to be superior to inner-city schools, yet this widely-held perception may not be rooted in reality. Although research confirms that suburban schools typically contain more advantaged students and more robust institutional resources, these factors only loosely predict schools’ causal effects on children’s skills. Moreover, core-city districts have more aggressively pursued evidence-based reforms than have suburban districts. To compare suburban versus core-city schools’ impacts on student learning, I estimate value-added school effects using standardized test score and sociodemographic data from 5,374 California elementary schools and 114,973 annual student cohorts between 2004-05 and 2011-12. Although suburban public schools contain more advantaged student bodies with higher baseline skills, they achieve considerably lower growth in math scores.

Author

• Jared Nathan Schachner, University of Chicago