Immigrants, Race and the High School Graduation Gap
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Transcript of Immigrants, Race and the High School Graduation Gap
Presentation by
Amy Ellen SchwartzNew York University
November 14, 2007
Citywide Council on High Schools
[email protected]@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.