new schools, overcrowding relief, and achievement gains in lausd
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7/31/2019 New Schools, Overcrowding Relief, and Achievement Gains in LAUSD
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Policy Brie 12-2
AUGUST 2012
New Schools,Overcrowding Relie,
and AchievementGains in Los Angeles
Strong Returns
rom a $19.5 BillionInvestment
William Welsh, Erin Coghlan,Bruce Fuller, Luke Dauter
University o Caliornia, Berkeley
William Welsh, lead author, is a Ph.D.
student in the Department o Sociology,
UC Berkeley. His work ocuses on the social
consequences o new orms o schooling.
Erin Coghlan is a Ph.D. student in the
Graduate School o Education, UC Berkeley.
She studies issues o school choice and
decentralizing education reorms.
Bruce Fuller, Proessor o Education and
Public Policy at UC Berkeley, works on the
eects o decentralizing public institutions
and sociology o the amily.
Luke Dauter is a Ph.D. candidate in the
Department o Sociology, UC Berkeley.
His work ocuses on competition and
institutional change in public education.
Urban educators have
struggled with aging,
overcrowded schools
since the late nineteenth
century. In contemporary Los Angeles,
by the mid-1990s, the count o packed
campuses operating year-round on
multiple shis had reached unprec-
edented numbers. Since the 1960s the
student population o the Los Angeles
Unied School District (LAUSD) had
increased by roughly 250,000 stu-
dents and shied dramatically rom
85% white, mostly middle-class to
our-iths Asian, Black, and Latino
amilies, typically living in low-income
neighborhoods (Kerchner et al., 2008).
L.A. had not built a new school sincethe 1930s. So, by the 1990s almost
25,000 children were bused out o high-
density areas to araway schools with
sucient space (Oakes, 2002).
Te Rodriguezconsent decree brought
by amilies living in the most densely
populated areas, along with heated
civic activism, pushed LAUSD to
set goals or reducing overcrowding.
Tis pressing problem, which likely
exacerbated achievement gaps among
students, caught the attention o voters.
Te L.A. electorate eventually backed
ve local and state ballot initiatives,
yielding more than $19 billion in resh
bond revenues, to nance an immense
acilities construction program. Tis
program involves over 130 new acili-
Executive Summary
Aiming to relieve overcrowded
schools operating on multiple
tracks, the Los Angeles Unied
School District (LAUSD) has
invested more than $19 billionto build 130 new acilities over
the past decade. District leaders
asked researchers at Berkeley to
estimate the achievement eects
o this massive initiative benets
that may stem rom entering
a bright, new school or rom
exiting an aging, even dilapidated
acility bursting at the seams with
students. Previous reports rom
the project examined how new
schools and alternative schools
have aected rates o student
mobility and teacher turnover
across LAUSD.1
By tracking thousands o students
who moved rom overcrowded to
new acilities over the 2002-2008
period, we discovered robust
achievement gains but also
uncovered questions related to
uture deliberations.
Key ndings include:
Thesteadyopeningofnew
schools dramatically relieved
overcrowding in elementary and
secondary schools and set in
motion a complex migration o
Continued on page 2.
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7/31/2019 New Schools, Overcrowding Relief, and Achievement Gains in LAUSD
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students, both to new acilities as
well as to a growing number o
charter and pilot schools.
Signicantachievementgainsare
discernible or elementary-school
pupils who switched rom an old
acility to a newly constructed
acility. On average, these
switching pupils outpaced the
average LAUSD student by a gain
equal to about 35 additional days
o instruction each year.
Achievementgainsare
most robust or elementary
students who escaped severe
overcrowding by moving to a
new elementary school. Relative
to the rate o learning or the
average LAUSD student, this
subset o students enjoyed
achievement gains equivalent
to about 65 days o additionalinstruction per year. Students
migrating to certain new
elementary schools experienced
even stronger gains.
Acrossnewelementaryschools,
we nd no relationship between
the per-pupil construction costs
directly tied to classrooms and
the magnitude o achievement
Executive Summary (Cont.)
ties, rom early learning centers to
large, elegant high schools, as well
as hundreds o renovation projects
(Fuller, Recinos, & Scholl, 2008). With
the exception o the ederal interstate
highway system, LAUSDs construction
program is the largest public works
gains. That is, pupils migrating
to less-costly new schools saw
achievement gains that were no
dierent, on average, rom those
moving to more expensive new
acilities.
Afteranewschoolopened
nearby, students who remained
in previously overcrowded
elementary schools experienced
modest gains, compared with theaverage LAUSD student.
Althoughnewfacilitiesfeatured
slightly lower pupil-teacher ratios,
higher shares o ully credentialed
teachers, and lower teacher
turnover, these eatures do not
explain the steeper achievement
growth o elementary students
migrating to these new acilities.
Additional research could
uncover the deeper actors
that explain the buoyant
achievements results.
Wecouldonlydiscern
inconsistent and weaker
achievement gains or high
school students who moved rom
an overcrowded to a new school
acility.
project ever undertaken in the United
States (Fuller et al., 2009).
But does entering a new school, or
moving students out o severely over-
crowded conditions, signiicantly
boost student learning? his is the
bottom-line question asked by leaders
o LAUSDs acilities initiative and the
topic explored in this brie.
Do Facilities Contribute to School
Quality in Potent Ways?
Convincing evidence has shown that
higher-achieving students attend
higher quality acilities, while low-per
orming students oen gain access only
to aging, oen overcrowded schools
However, this does not necessarily
mean that shiny, innovative campuses
directly raise test scores. Higher
achieving students oen benet rom
strong amily support and other aspects
o school quality that contribute to
their achievement growth.
L.A.s massive experiment in moving
thousands o students rom severely
overcrowded to new acilities oers
a rare chance to look at the specic
eects o this migration, allowing usto move beyond correlational evidence
and make stronger causal inerences
Te estimated eects o migrating to
a new school also hold immediate
implications, as LAUSD shapes new
investments in school renovation and
increasingly shares new acilities with
alternative school managers, including
charter and teacher-led pilot schools.
Earlier correlational studies sug-
gest that certain eatures o schoo
designsuch as clean air, good light
and a comortable and sae learning
environmentresult in stronger pupi
engagement and achievement (Sch-
neider, 2002; Lemasters, 1997; Lackney
1999; and Cotton, 2001). Other ele
ments o school quality related to better
P O L I C Y B R I E F
N E W S C HOOL S , OVE R C R OW D I N G R E L I E F , AN D AC HI E VE M E N T G AI N S I N L OS AN G E L E S2
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acilities, such as an enriched academic
climate, or higher teacher morale and
lower sta turnover, are also associ-
ated with better student outcomes,
stemming rom more robust working
conditions (Buckley et al., 2005; Uline
& schannen-Moran, 2008).
But to date little evidence exists to
support the claim that the quality o
school acilities directly inluences
educational outcomes. Earlier work
suers rom small samples o schools,
lack o control or conounding actors,and scarcity o longitudinal data. More
recent studies have a stronger empiri-
cal base, but results correlating school
acilities and achievement remain
inconclusive (Bowers & Urick, 2011;
Nielson & Zimmerman, 2011).
Tis brie uses high-quality longitu-
dinal data recently made available
by LAUSD to derive more rigorous
estimates o how new acilities aectstudent mobility and achievement.
Te study examines enrollment and
test scores or nearly 20,000 elemen-
tary and high school students rom
20022008, during the rst phase o the
new acilities construction project.
aking the case o densely populated
Local District 6 (LD6), we begin by
detailing the extent o student move-
ment rom old, overcrowded buildings
to new schools. Next we examine the
achievement eects or elementary
and high school students throughout
LAUSD, ocusing on the discrete
benets or students who le severely
overcrowded schools or new acilities.
We also ask whether students remain-
ing behind in older schools beneit
academically rom enrollment relie.
Tat is, gains may be experienced both
by those who migrate to new acilities
and by pupils who are now served by
less-crowded schools.
How New Facilities Relieved Over-
crowding
Student movement as new schoolsand charters open
Beore estimating achievement eects
rom student movement, we consider
the extent o student migration sparked
by the Districts ambitious construc-
tion program. o illustrate, we analyze
student movement in the LAUSD
subdistrict that became inamous or
its high levels o overcrowding: Local
District 6, serving the Southeast Cities
o Maywood, South Gate, Huntington
Park, Cudahy, Vernon, and Bell. We
detail student movement rom over-
crowded high schools to two new high
schools that opened in 2005. Tis caseo student migration, including into the
rising count o charter schools, ocuses
on high schools.
For many years, the three large high
schools in Local District 6 (LD6) were
severely overcrowded. South Gate,
Huntington Park, and Jordan each
served nearly 5,000 students, although
they were designed to serve ar ewer;each operated multitrack calendars or
over 20 years. In 2005, Maywood and
South East high schools opened nearby
and began to alleviate overcrowding.
New acilities were sited near over-
crowded acilities so that their catch-
ment areas would include many o the
students previously assigned to the
overcrowded acility. When the new
acilities opened, catchment areas were
redrawn such that some students pre-
viously assigned to old acilities were
assigned to new acilities. O course
some students likely moved into a new
acilitys catchment area, and some par-
ents likely ound ways or their student
to be assigned to a new acility despite
not living in the catchment area. Bu
or the purpose o our analysis, no
categorical dierence exists between
students who could and students who
could not attend a new acility. Even
small systematic dierences would not
aect the results o our achievement
analysis, because our procedures con-
trol or all unobserved characteristics
o students.
Figure 1 shows enrollment changes
in LD6 when Maywood and South
East high schools opened. Te arrow
show the number o students whotranserred rom an old high school
acility to a new school. (Movemen
rom middle schools into new high
schools is not shown.) Within the rst
year o opening, South East high schoo
enrolled over 2,000 students, drawing a
majority o its enrollment rom severely
overcrowded South Gate High School
neighboring David Starr Jordan, and
Huntington Park. Maywood enrolledewer students in its rst year o opera-
tion, but drew students rom nearby
Bell and Huntington high schools
Tus, although Figure 1 only shows
movement o students to Maywood
and South East, many o the schools in
LD6 saw enrollment drops, due to the
variety o new schools opening.
N E W S C HOOL S , OVE R C R OW D I N G R E L I E F , AN D AC HI E VE M E N T G AI N S I N L OS AN G E L E S 3
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Change in student mobility overtime
By 2008, two new charters, three new
mixed schools, and two new middle
schools opened in LD6. By this time,
Maywood and South East contin-
ued to pick up enrollment rom the
overcrowded schools as well. South
Gate had sent over 1,000 students to
South East, David Starr Jordan had
sent nearly 200, and Huntington Park
had sent over 160 students. Maywoodreceived over 160 students rom Bell
and 30 rom Huntington Park. By
2008, the majority o middle and senior
high schools in LD6 had experienced
enrollment drops or stability rom the
previous year, as relie played out.
In summary, we see that both new
school construction and the open-
ing o charter schools spurred many
amilies to switch schools. At thesame time, enrollments shrank in the
previously overcrowded schools. So,
the school environments changed or
students who migrated and or those
who remained behind in now-smaller,
older schools.
Did Students Enjoy Achievement
Benefts When Moving to New
Schools?
Te longitudinal student data system,
built by LAUSD, allows us to estimate
achievement beneits or students
who switched rom a previously over-
crowded school to a new acility. Tis
initial analysis ocuses solely on the
over 20,000 students who made this
switch during the 20022008 period.
We report results or elementary and
high school students separately, using
what are called within-individua
xed-eects models. Tis statistica
procedure gauges change in test scores
or individual students as they move
rom an overcrowded to a new acil-
ity. Te methodological appendix a
the end o this brie provides more
details.
Aer controlling or students previ-
ous test scores, the age o the school
whether it was a students rst year o
school, the number o instructionadays in the school calendar, and al
unobserved characteristics o each
student (such as parents press or
achievement, student motivation, and
peer eects), we estimated average
year-to-year growth in student scores
on the Caliornia Standards ests
(CSs) as a result o moving to a new
acility. able 1 gives summary statis-
tics or our models.
Good news or elementary schoolstudents
Figure 2 summarizes our results. We
ound that newelementary schoolacili-
ties, aer their initial two years, pro-
vided an average boost to achievemen
o about 0.18 o a standard deviation
(SD) in math and 0.20 SD in language
arts or each year that the student was
in the new acility. Box 1 explains
why we standardized the magnitude o
achievement eects in this way, equat-
ing the gain to additional instructiona
days.
Students switching into new high
schoolacilities was associated with a
statistically signicant average gain in
FIGURE 1. Local District 6: Students Move rom Overcrowded to New High Schools,
2005
SOUTH EAST
HIGH SCHOOL
Enrollment: 2,246
117
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