Presentation by

Amy Ellen SchwartzNew York University

 November 14, 2007

Citywide Council on High Schools

amy.schwartz@nyu.eduiesp@nyu.edu

Immigrants, Race and the High School Graduation Gap

Why Should We Care?

• Immigrants represent a large group in NYC schools

• Success in school will shape:

– The education of the labor force

– Demands/supports for social safety net

– Competitiveness of the NYC economy

Previous Research

• Schwartz and Stiefel (2006) and others show that foreign born students outperform otherwise similar native born students through the eighth grade

• Chiswick and DebBurman (2004) and Ruiz-de-Velasco et al. (2002) and a wide range of advocates, educators and researchers suggest that high school may be different.

Why might high school results differ?

• Prior human capital– Quality differences,Transferability

• Developmental stage– Social, Language acquisition skills

• Institutional/School differences• Mobility • Selective Migration• K-8 successes may not be sustained

This Project

We use data on NYC high school students to:• examine high school outcomes for foreign and

native born students by entry level– Estimate the “nativity gap” by entry level

– Estimate the impact of entry level within groups

• estimate the impact of the entry level on outcomes of foreign born students relative to otherwise similar native born students.

Our data

• Over 60,000 students in 2002 high school cohort (N=61,338: 20,707 foreign and 40,631 native)

• Four year high school graduation information

• Test taking and test score data

• Birth country

• Include controls for students’ race, home language, age relative to others in grade, sex, ELL status, high school and birth country regions.

Immigrant and Native-born Students Differ Significantly

• Race

• Home language

• English language skills

• In the time they enter NYC public schools

• In their testing and graduation outcomes

Mean Characteristics of 2002 High School Cohort

Variable All Students Foreign Native Native-Born 0.66 0.00 1.00 Foreign-Born 0.34 1.00 0.00 ELL 0.08 0.21 0.01 English is Home Language 0.54 0.29 0.68 Female 0.51 0.50 0.52 Asian 0.14 0.28 0.07 Black 0.36 0.26 0.41 Hispanic 0.33 0.31 0.34 White 0.17 0.16 0.17 Overage in 2002 0.29 0.42 0.23 N 61,338 20,707 40,631

Mean Characteristics of 2002 High School Cohort

Variable All Students Foreign Native Student Outcomes

Took Regent or RCT, English 0.71 0.75 0.69 Regents English Score 69.13 67.87 69.83 Took Regent or RCT, Math 0.75 0.78 0.73 Regents Sequential I Math Score 66.13 68.54 64.84 Took SAT 0.26 0.31 0.23 SAT Score 919.70 908.05 927.69 Graduated from HS in 4 Years 0.47 0.51 0.45 Still Enrolled after 4 Years 0.29 0.29 0.29

Entry Characteristics Entered in Elementary School 0.69 0.43 0.82 Entered in Middle School 0.07 0.17 0.02 Entered in High School 0.24 0.40 0.15 Entered High School in 99 0.17 0.25 0.13 Entered High School in 00 0.05 0.11 0.01 Entered High School in 01 0.02 0.04 0.01 Entered High School in 02 0.01 0.01 0.00 Age Entered NYC Schools 8.62 11.56 7.13 N 61,338 20,707 40,631

Graduation Outcomes by Nativity and Entry Level

Foreign-born FB (1)

Native-born NB (2)

Difference FB-NB

(3) High school entry HS

(1)

0.447 0.387 .060

Middle school entry MS

(2)

0.507 0.469 .038

Elementary school entry ES

(3)

0.579 0.467 .112

Graduation Outcomes by Nativity and Entry Level,

Adjusted for Student Characteristics

Foreign-born FB (1)

Native-born NB (2)

Difference FB-NB

(3) High school entry HS

(1)

0.700 0.595

0.105

Middle school entry MS

(2)

0.675 0.647 0.028

Elementary school entry ES

(3)

0.693 0.606 .087

Graduation Outcomes by Nativity and Entry Level,

Adjusted for Student Characteristics and Schools Attended

Foreign-born FB (1)

Native-born NB (2)

Difference FB-NB

(3) High school entry HS

(1)

0.599 0.513 0.086

Middle school entry MS

(2)

0.563 0.512 0.051

Elementary school entry ES

(3)

0.561 0.501 0.060

Results•Immigrants do quite well.•Among immigrants, high school entrants do better than elementary or middle school entrants.•Among native born, high school entrants do less well.•High school entry seems to have a positive effect on foreign-born performance.

Why do these results emerge?

•Consistent with selective migration– Stronger for foreign born

•Selective dropping out?

•High schools may, indeed, be better suited to accomodating/acclimating newcomers than middle schools

Next Steps

• Replication – other cohorts

• Variability in success across schools and its causes

• Subgroup Analyses– By region– By race

Evidence on Race

Differences in Graduation Outcomes

Adjusted for Student and School Characteristics

Asian 0.043*** (0.011) Black -0.060*** (0.011) Hispanic -0.089*** (0.011) ELL -0.128*** (0.015) Home Language Not English 0.020*** (0.006) Constant 0.499*** (0.009) Observations 61,338 R-squared 0.36

Evidence on Race

High School Test-Taking & Test Scores

Adjusted for Student and School Characteristics

Took HS

English TestEnglish

Test ScoreTook HS

Math TestMath Test

ScoreAsian 0.025*** 0.009 0.032*** 0.151***

(0.008) (0.027) (0.009) (0.026)

Black -0.004 -0.277*** -0.037*** -0.269***

(0.008) (0.028) (0.010) (0.028)

Hispanic -0.038*** -0.215*** -0.070*** -0.253***

(0.007) (0.025) (0.011) (0.024)

ELL 0.104*** -0.759*** 0.041** -0.400***

(0.013) (0.032) (0.017) (0.028)

Home Language not English 0.005 -0.042*** 0.017*** 0.01

(0.005) (0.015) (0.005) (0.016)

Constant 0.728*** 0.186*** 0.737*** 0.135***

(0.007) (0.021) (0.009) (0.020)

Observations 61338 43188 61338 41380

R-squared 0.41 0.36 0.33 0.36

Evidence on Race

Differences in Graduation Outcomes

Adjusted for Student and School Characteristics and Past Performance

Asian 0.000

(0.008)

Black -0.008(0.008)

Hispanic -0.030***(0.007)

ELL -0.081***(0.010)

Home Language Not English 0.022***(0.005)

Constant -0.02(0.026)

Observations 47491R-squared 0.47

Results

•Race matters

•But adjusting for other things -- like ELL -- reduces the size of the disparity across races.

•Most important, race considerably less important to graduation outcomes, given performance on early regents exams.