Immigrants, Race and the High School Graduation Gap
Presentation by
Amy Ellen Schwartz
New York University
November 14, 2007
Citywide Council on High Schools
[email protected]
[email protected]
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-deVelasco 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
Native-Born
Foreign-Born
ELL
English is Home Language
Female
Asian
Black
Hispanic
White
Overage in 2002
N
All Students
0.66
0.34
0.08
0.54
0.51
0.14
0.36
0.33
0.17
0.29
61,338
Foreign
0.00
1.00
0.21
0.29
0.50
0.28
0.26
0.31
0.16
0.42
20,707
Native
1.00
0.00
0.01
0.68
0.52
0.07
0.41
0.34
0.17
0.23
40,631
Mean Characteristics of 2002 High School Cohort
Variable
Took Regent or RCT, English
Regents English Score
Took Regent or RCT, Math
Regents Sequential I Math Score
Took SAT
SAT Score
Graduated from HS in 4 Years
Still Enrolled after 4 Years
Entered in Elementary School
Entered in Middle School
Entered in High School
Entered High School in 99
Entered High School in 00
Entered High School in 01
Entered High School in 02
Age Entered NYC Schools
N
All Students
Student Outcomes
0.71
69.13
0.75
66.13
0.26
919.70
0.47
0.29
Entry Characteristics
0.69
0.07
0.24
0.17
0.05
0.02
0.01
8.62
61,338
Foreign
Native
0.75
67.87
0.78
68.54
0.31
908.05
0.51
0.29
0.69
69.83
0.73
64.84
0.23
927.69
0.45
0.29
0.43
0.17
0.40
0.25
0.11
0.04
0.01
11.56
20,707
0.82
0.02
0.15
0.13
0.01
0.01
0.00
7.13
40,631
Graduation Outcomes by Nativity and Entry Level
High school entry
HS
(1)
Middle school entry
MS
(2)
Elementary school
entry ES
(3)
Foreign-born
FB
(1)
0.447
Native-born
NB
(2)
0.387
Difference
FB-NB
(3)
.060
0.507
0.469
.038
0.579
0.467
.112
Graduation Outcomes by Nativity and Entry Level,
Adjusted for Student Characteristics
High school entry
HS
(1)
Middle school entry
MS
(2)
Elementary school
entry ES
(3)
Foreign-born
FB
(1)
0.700
Native-born
NB
(2)
0.595
Difference
FB-NB
(3)
0.105
0.675
0.647
0.028
0.693
0.606
.087
Graduation Outcomes by Nativity and Entry Level,
Adjusted for Student Characteristics and Schools Attended
High school entry
HS
(1)
Middle school entry
MS
(2)
Elementary school
entry ES
(3)
Foreign-born
FB
(1)
0.599
Native-born
NB
(2)
0.513
Difference
FB-NB
(3)
0.086
0.563
0.512
0.051
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
Black
Hispanic
ELL
Home Language Not English
Constant
Observations
R-squared
0.043***
(0.011)
-0.060***
(0.011)
-0.089***
(0.011)
-0.128***
(0.015)
0.020***
(0.006)
0.499***
(0.009)
61,338
0.36
Evidence on Race
High School Test-Taking & Test Scores
Adjusted for Student and School Characteristics
Asian
Took HS
English
Took HS Math Test
English Test Test Score Math Test
Score
0.025***
0.009
0.032***
0.151***
(0.008)
(0.027)
(0.009)
(0.026)
Black
-0.004
(0.008)
-0.277***
(0.028)
-0.037***
(0.010)
-0.269***
(0.028)
Hispanic
-0.038***
(0.007)
-0.215***
(0.025)
-0.070***
(0.011)
-0.253***
(0.024)
ELL
0.104***
(0.013)
-0.759***
(0.032)
0.041**
(0.017)
-0.400***
(0.028)
Home Language not English
0.005
(0.005)
-0.042***
(0.015)
0.017***
(0.005)
0.01
(0.016)
Constant
0.728***
(0.007)
0.186***
(0.021)
0.737***
(0.009)
0.135***
(0.020)
Observations
R-squared
61338
0.41
43188
0.36
61338
0.33
41380
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)
-0.02
(0.026)
47491
0.47
Constant
Observations
R-squared
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.