Are school district boundaries the "dividing lines" in New York State?

Are school district boundaries the dividing lines between the poor and nonpoor in New York State? Let’s check by using the NCES Common Core of Data.

How to cluster standard errors in 15 minutes

A brief note on clustered standard errors, so we can get back to business asap.

This blog post follows section 8.2 of Mostly Harmless Econometrics (Abbreviated MHE). I highly recommend reading that section of MHE for more details.

Studying Segregation using the CCD: the work of Saporito and Sohoni

• The Common Core of Data is good for studying school segregation.
• In large city school districts, there are relatively more whites in private schools than blacks or hispanics.
  • So more government support for school choice might increase urban school segregation.
• On the other hand, public magnet schools do seem to reduce segregation, contrary to conventional wisdom.

The Common Core of Data: an exploratory introduction

 

Attrition in American highschools

The NCES' Common Core of Data (CCD) is a cornerstone of ed analysis. Among other things (see section 3), it contains school-level data on enrollments by grade.

We can use the CCD to, for example, understand where high school dropout is more or less serious. Across the continental US, dropout propensities look like this:

Using the 2009-10 through 2012-13 CCD: US | Northeast | Midwest | South | West

Using the 1999-00 through 2002-03 CCD: US | Northeast | Midwest | South | West

Using the 1989-90 through 1992-93 CCD: US | Northeast | Midwest | South | West

Key
● attrition greater than 18.5%
● attrition between 6.7% and 18.5%
● attrition less than 6.7%