The Student Upward Mobility Initiative (SUMI) aims to identify skills and competencies developed in PK–12 education that propel students into upward mobility. In addition to uplifting SUMI grantees’ research, we highlight research from the broader education-to-upward-mobility field.
This research roundup features three studies that contribute to our collective understanding of school-level impacts on students’ trajectories. To suggest a study we should highlight in a future research roundup, email us at [email protected].
As part of our aim to expand the field of education to upward mobility, SUMI seeks to understand how students’ access to opportunities and skill development at various stages in their PK–12 education shapes their trajectories as adults. Research shows that school-level characteristics, such as funding levels and teacher qualifications, can have cascading effects on students’ learning, goal setting, and skill development.
In this blog post, we highlight three recent studies that deepen the field’s understanding of how school-level structures and systems shape students’ trajectories toward upward mobility. Each study highlights how school environments can expand or limit opportunity and how school quality can be measured beyond summative assessments.
The Opportunity Makers: How a Diverse Group of Public Schools Helps Students Catch Up—and How Far More Can
Author: The New Teacher Project (TNTP)
Data Sources:
- Stanford Education Data Archive
- Seven schools across the country recruited for case studies
Methodology:
- Public data analysis
- In-depth, mixed-methods case studies
Researchers at TNTP analyzed public data from 28,000 elementary and middle schools across the nation where the average student had math or reading scores below their grade level at the start of the school year. Ninety-five percent of these schools weren’t able to help these students catch up their grade level by the end of the year.
But a small share of schools helped students gain more than a year of learning during the school year, meaning students reached or exceeded their grade level by the end of the year. TNTP selected seven of these “trajectory-changing schools” for in-depth, mixed-methods case studies.
Through observations, interviews, surveys, and shadowing sessions, TNTP identified three commonalities among the schools:
- Schools fostered a culture of belonging among students. This was cultivated by educators and by school-level structures, policies, and practices.
- Their instruction was marked by consistency, both in the content and quality of educators’ lessons, as well as school-level structures, such as a shared curriculum.
- School leadership ensured instructional programming was coherent by setting priorities that were clear to teachers, caregivers, and students.
Though the case studies offer valuable lessons, they represent only 7 out of 1,300 trajectory-changing schools the researchers identified. Additionally, these 7 schools serve disproportionately low numbers of Black students, which the authors note is a characteristic of trajectory-changing schools overall.
Ready or Not? A New Way to Measure Elementary and Middle School Quality
Authors: Jing Liu, Seth Gershenson, and Max Anthenelli
Data Sources:
- Student-level data from Maryland and North Carolina
- Administrative data from the Maryland Longitudinal Data System
- Survey data from North Carolina
Methodology:
- Value-added modeling of grade point averages (GPAs)
Using student-level data from Maryland and North Carolina, researchers at the University of Maryland and American University developed a measure that captures the role of the school on students’ GPA and later outcomes to isolate the quality of different elementary and middle schools. The authors sought to understand whether grade-based measures can be differentially predictive of later outcomes compared with test-based school value-added models.
After controlling for students’ demographic information and baseline academic performance, the researchers found students’ elementary schools had a sizable effect on their grades in middle school. Similarly, students’ middle schools affected their overall GPA in ninth grade and ninth-grade promotion in both Maryland and North Carolina. Notably, these differences persist even when accounting for test score value-added models, suggesting that GPA value-added is capturing a different measure of school quality.
But the researchers note that middle schools with higher GPA value-added doesn’t correlate with positive, long-term measures of attainment. They found no or null effects on high school graduation, college-going aspirations, and college enrollment. The authors hypothesize that the GPA-based school-level factors may promote students’ durable skills better than test-based measures, relying on the early-ninth grade results as evidence.
The study is limited by the fact that only middle school data were available for North Carolina. Factors like student sorting and measurement error also make it challenging to isolate a school’s effects.
Understanding High Schools’ Effects on Longer-Term Outcomes
Authors: Preeya P. Mbekeani, John Papay, Ann Mantil, and Richard J. Murnane
Data Sources:
- Student-level data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
- Massachusetts unemployment insurance system
Methodology:
- Value-added modeling of high school indicators
Researchers from Brown University and Harvard University used longitudinal data from Massachusetts to estimate public high schools’ effectiveness in promoting students’ short-term outcomes, such as 10th-grade test scores and college-going aspirations. They also analyzed schools’ long-term benefits for low-income students’ mobility outcomes, defined as graduating from a four-year college and adult earnings.
Researchers conceptualized school quality using a framework that considered whether a school supported students’ educational attainment, preparation for the labor market, civic engagement, and long-term well-being through school value-added models.
This study illuminated several insights into how high schools can affect students’ long-term mobility. The researchers found that similar students attending schools in the 80th percentile of the distribution for school quality are more likely to graduate with a four-year degree within nine years of high school graduation than students attending schools in the bottom 20th percentile. Additionally, these students earn 13 percent more annually at age 30 than students attending schools in the 20th percentile.
Short-term measures of school quality, such as test scores and instilling college aspirations, were also correlated with schools’ effects on longer-term outcomes, such as graduating from college and adult earnings. These effects were particularly pronounced for low-income students.
The researchers note that isolating school effects is complex, given the challenges of student sorting and the limitations of available data. For example, the researchers used free and reduced-price lunch as a proxy for low-income students.