“Oh, the Places You’ll Go:” Neighborhood Economic Diversity and Children’s Educational Outcomes in New York City

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  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 2: Teaching and Administrative Practice

Abstract

The present study examines (1) whether subsidized housing affect neighborhood economic diversity, and (2) whether in turn neighborhood economic diversity affects children’s educational outcomes. We construct a dataset, which identifies all NYC neighborhoods, where subsidized housing has been developed and when it was developed. We merge that dataset with data from the New York City Department of Education, which gives us access to the school records of all students, enrolled in public and charter schools, for each academic year from 2005-06 to 2016-17. We find a negative link between neighborhood economic diversity and subsidized housing, although there are variations by borough. We also find that the relationship between neighborhood economic diversity and academic outcomes is positive and strong across New York City boroughs: both ELA and Math average test scores are highest across neighborhoods with highest levels of economic diversity.

Authors

• Elena Vesselinov, CUNY-Queens College

• Amy Lutz, Syracuse University

• Lance Freeman, Columbia University