Newark Report

Cory Booker and Charter Schools: Before the New York Times Essay, What the Senator Has Said — and What Research Has Shown — About His Education Track Record in Newark

November 18, 2019
CEPR's research on Newark's education reforms is cited in The 74's article on Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker's stance on charter schools. ... Read more about Cory Booker and Charter Schools: Before the New York Times Essay, What the Senator Has Said — and What Research Has Shown — About His Education Track Record in Newark
Mark Chin

Mark Chin

Assistant Professor of Education Policy and Inequality, Vanderbilt University
Partnering in Education Research (PIER) Fellow Alum

Job Market Paper: Breaking rank? An investigation of families’ preferences for schools and their causal moderators
Dissertation Committee: Martin West, David Deming, Desmond Ang
Research Interests: School Integration, School Choice, Racial Attitudes/Bias, Prosocial Behavior, Sociopolitical Preferences, Applied Quantitative Methods in Education Research
PIER Summer Residency Placement: Wake County Public Schools

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Chin, M., Kane, T., Kozakowski, W., Schueler, B., & Staiger, D. (Working Paper). School District Reform in Newark: Within- and Between- School Changes in Achievement Growth. NBER Working Paper 23922 . Publisher's VersionAbstract
In 2011-12, Newark launched a set of educational reforms supported by $20 million gift. Using data from 2009 through 2016, we evaluate the change in Newark students’ achievement growth relative to similar students and schools elsewhere in New Jersey. We measure achievement growth using a “value-added” model, controlling for prior achievement, demographics and peer characteristics. By the fifth year of reform, Newark saw statistically significant gains in English and no significant change in math achievement growth. Perhaps due to the disruptive nature of the reforms, growth declined initially before rebounding in recent years. Aided by the closure of low value-added schools, much of the improvement was due to shifting enrollment from lower-to higher-growth district and charter schools. Shifting enrollment accounted for 62 percent of the improvement in English. In math, such shifts offset what would have been a decline in achievement growth.
Chin, M., Kane, T., Kozakowski, W., Schueler, B., & Staiger, D. (2017). Assessing the Impact of the Newark Education Reforms . Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University.Abstract
Aided by $200 million in private philanthropy, city and state leaders launched a major school reform effort in Newark, New Jersey, starting in the 2011–2012 school year. In a coinciding National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, we assessed the impact of those reforms on student achievement growth, comparing students in Newark Public Schools (NPS) district and charter schools to students with similar prior achievement, similar demographics, and similar peers elsewhere in New Jersey. This report includes key findings.
Douglas Staiger

Douglas Staiger

Co-Principal Investigator; CEPR Advisory Board Member
John Sloane Dickey Third Century Professor of Economics
Department of Economics, Dartmouth College