The Geography of Educational Opportunity

该奖项资助了一项关于地理位置如何影响美国年轻人长期生活结果的创新研究。我们还不清楚为什么地理位置对晚年生活结果有如此重大的影响。该项目结合了来自一个大州的几个大型数据集，以衡量中小学资源如何影响认知和非认知技能的获得，这些技能的获得通过出勤率、违纪或校外停学以及考试成绩来衡量。然后，研究人员调查了学校对技能发展的影响与未来结果之间的关系，这些结果包括劳动力市场参与度、中学后教育以及与刑事司法系统的接触。这项研究有助于澄清学校在出生地和成年后的成就之间的联系中所起的作用。此外，通过确定那些对成年后的结果产生最有益影响的学校，这项研究可以阐明似乎非常有效的教育实践。这项研究的结果将为地方、州和联邦各级的人力资本投资政策提供信息，从而促进经济增长，提高生活水平。为了评估以前记录的学校质量指标与当地代际流动性之间的相关性是否反映了学校对经济和社会流动性的因果贡献，本研究利用了一个大州20多年来关于学校教育、收入和参与刑事司法系统的独特行政数据，并允许研究人员跟踪从小学到成年的学生。该分析使用了几个互补的研究设计，这些设计已用于评估教师、校长、学校和地点的影响，包括利用教师和学生在学校之间的运动的方法。每种方法都解决了不同的潜在偏差，包括邻居因素或随时间变化的家庭冲击的潜在混淆影响。结合广泛的安慰剂测试和敏感性分析，这些估计将提供关于学校效应结构及其在时间和地点上的可变性的严格新信息。此外，对教师和校长有效性差异的贡献的估计将描绘出学校影响经济和社会流动性的渠道的丰富图景。研究结果将为地方、州和联邦各级的人力资本投资政策提供信息，从而促进经济增长，提高生活水平。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award funds an innovative research into how location affects long-term outcomes of young adults in the U.S. We do not yet have a clear understanding of why location has such significant impacts on later-life outcomes. This project combines several large data sets from a large state to measure how elementary and secondary school resources affect the acquisition of cognitive and noncognitive skills measured by school attendance, receipt of disciplinary infractions or out-of-school suspensions, and test scores. The researchers then investigate the relationships between school effects on skill development and future outcomes including labor market engagement, post-secondary schooling, and contacts with the criminal justice system. This research helps to clarify the role that schools play in contributing to the link between place of birth and adult outcomes. Moreover, by identifying those schools that have the most beneficial impacts on outcomes in adulthood, this research can illuminate educational practices that appear be highly effective. The results of this research will inform human capital investment policies at the local, state, and federal levels, hence increase economic growth, and improve living standards. To assess whether previously documented correlations between school quality measures and local intergenerational mobility reflect the causal contributions of schools to economic and social mobility, this research takes advantage of unique administrative data on schooling, earnings, and involvement in the criminal justice system for a large state that spans over twenty years and permit the researchers to track students from elementary school through adulthood. The analysis uses several complementary research designs that have been used in the estimation of teacher, principal, school, and place effects, including approaches that take advantage of teacher and student movements across schools. Each methodology addresses distinct potential biases, including the potentially confounding influences of neighborhood factors or time-varying family shocks. In combination with extensive placebo testing and sensitivity analysis, the estimates will provide rigorous new information on the structure of school effects and their variability across time and place. Moreover, estimation of the contributions of differences in teacher and principal effectiveness will paint a rich picture of the channels through which schools affect economic and social mobility. The research results will inform human capital investment policies at the local, state, and federal levels, hence increase economic growth, and improve living standards.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.