new schools, overcrowding relief, and achievement gains in lausd

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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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.

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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

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new schools, overcrowding relief, and achievement gains in lausd

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