Highly rated urban schools are often held up as models for lower-rated urban districts. These high-scoring urban schools, both district and charter, get results on Ohio's standardized tests that shine compared to results many schools get in districts struggling with the effects of concentrated poverty. Administrators, journalists, and policy…

Analyzes pupil-specific public school data from the 1988 National Education Longitudinal Study. Applies instrumental-variable econometric methods to account for nonrandom allocation of students to different class sizes and the endogenous class-size variable. Improved data and statistical techniques indicate returns to investing in smaller classes…