TY  - JOUR
AB  - There is growing evidence that investment in school facilities, and new school construction in particular, can improve K-12 student outcomes, particularly for low-income students. Funding for school infrastructure, however, is inequitably distributed. Moreover, given a lack of national data on school facilities, researchers have focused on specific states or districts, leaving contextual variation understudied. This paper contributes to the literature on equity and impact of new school construction spending by examining New York City (NYC), which spent $12 billion on new K-12 school seats between 2005 and 2019. In contrast to prior studies, students who attend new school buildings in NYC, which were built to alleviate overcrowding, are disproportionately high-performing and White, and less low-income. Using detailed student and school building-level data, and a difference-in-differences estimator, I find that attending a new school building causes a statistically significant but small 1 percentage point improvement in attendance rate each year after three years in the new facility. Results for math and ELA scores are also small, but imprecise. These findings suggest policymakers should consider equity with respect to student poverty and performance in school infrastructure allocations, as this may in turn affect the return on investment.
AU  - O'Hagan, Kaitlyn G. 
PY  - 2025
ST  - Inequities and Impacts of Investments in New School Facilities
TI  - Inequities and Impacts of Investments in New School Facilities
UR  - http://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1121
ER  -