Do School Types Matter in Student Achievement in Urban High Schools?

1. Descriptive Analysis This study uses a subset of NELS students enrolled in urban schools. The primary reason why we focus on students at urban schools is that most private schools are located in those areas. 65.3 percent of 1,441 NELS individuals enrolled in private schools are present in municipal areas. 1 80.8 percent of Catholic school students reside in urban places. 2 Moreover, private schools aside, public magnet schools are also more prevalent in urban regions. 57.5 percent of magnet school students are drawn from urban institutions. The over-representation of private and public magnet schools in urban areas may reflect the fact that educators and policy-makers have concerns about the disturbed state of public education in those areas. To improve the quality of urban education, many government agencies have attempted to provide their students with the opportunity to choose schools, whether by establishing varied types of public schools with special missions or by implementing school voucher programs applied to private schools. Another reason is that minority youth are disproportionately located in urban areas. Increasing gaps in educational attainment between racial/ethnic groups has been one of the most pressing education policy challenges facing the United States today. Provision of urban education with high quality may play a significant role in reducing the gaps. Table 1 compares demographic characteristics of the entire NELS and urban samples. 21.2 percent of students enrolled in urban schools were Hispanic while the equivalent number is only 12.8 percent for the 1 To put it differently, 28.4 percent of 3,319 students in urban areas were attending private schools while the equivalent number was only 11.9 percent for the entire NELS sample (N=12,144). 2 More specifically, the equivalent numbers are 74.4 percent for Catholic Diocesan schools, 93.9 percent for Catholic Parish schools, and 89.6 percent for Catholic Religious Order schools.