Are High-Quality Schools Enough to Increase Achievement Among the Poor?

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Evidence from the Harlem Children's Zone



Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ), which combines community programs with "No Excuses" charter schools, is one of the most ambitious social experiments to alleviate poverty of our time. In this paper, the authors provide the first empirical test of the causal impact of attending the Promise Academy charter schools in HCZ on educational outcomes, with an eye towards informing the long-standing debate on whether schools alone can eliminate the achievement gap or whether the issues that poor children bring to school are too much for educators alone to overcome. Both lottery and instrumental variable identification strategies suggest that the effects of attending the Promise Academy middle school are enough to close the black-white achievement gap in mathematics. The effects in elementary school are large enough to close the racial achievement gap in both mathematics and English Language Arts. The authors conclude by presenting two pieces of evidence that suggest high-quality schools are enough to significantly increase academic achievement among the poor. Community programs appear neither necessary nor sufficient.