Can Neighborhood Redevelopment Initiatives Improve Educational Outcomes? Novel Evidence From the Choice Neighborhood Initiative

Mixed-income initiatives provide critical investments in neighborhoods, including investments to improve schools, and provide case management and family support services to low-income families. The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) is one of the largest and most comprehensive mixed-income neighborhood redevelopment initiatives to date; however, research has yet to examine the CNI’s effect on educational outcomes. We applied a robust difference-in-difference (DID) method to dynamically estimate the effect of attending a CNI partner school and receiving CNI family case management services on student performance in math and reading, as well as attendance and behavior. We found that attending a CNI partner school substantially decreased suspensions, modestly decreased absences, and slightly decreased math performance. While receiving case management services marginally increased English language arts (ELA) performance, this effect was only found among students with a history of economic distress. Furthermore, dynamic modeling revealed that the effects on punishment were durable, while the effects on academics were short-lived. Moreover, the effects differed across both gender and age, representing substantial heterogeneity.