Many social reformers have long said that low academic achievement among inner-city children cannot be improved significantly without moving their families to better neighborhoods, but new reports released Tuesday that draw on a unique set of data throw cold water on that theory.Researchers examining what happened to 4,248 families who were randomly given or denied federal housing vouchers to move out of their high-poverty neighborhoods found no significant difference about seven years later between the achievement of children who moved to more middle-class neighborhoods and those who didn't.
Although some children had more stable lives and better academic results after the moves, the researchers said, on average, there was no improvement. Boys and brighter students appeared to have more behavioral problems in their new schools, the studies found.
"Research has in fact found surprisingly little convincing evidence that neighborhoods play a key role in children's educational success," says one of the two reports on the Web site of the Hoover Institution's journal Education Next.
Read More
