Can Reorganizing K-8 Education Improve
Academic Performance? The Impact of Grade Span
on Student Achievement
AMY ELLEN SCHWARTZ
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
LEANNA STIEFEL
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
ROSS RUBENSTEIN
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
JEFFREY ZABEL
TUFTS UNIVERSITY
US Department of Education Institute for Education Sciences grant
R305E040096 provided support for work leading to this paper.
Overview
 Motivation and lit review

Why might grade span matter?
 Data and description of NYC grade spans
 Analysis and Results
 Conclusions
Motivation for Study
Why might grade span matter?
Indirect effects through relationships with:
Timing
and number of school transitions
Student-school matching
School culture
Conceptual Model: Grade Span and Student Performance
School
Transitions
Number
Timing
timintimeiet
Peer Effects
Across age groups
Within classrooms
School
Features
Coordination among teachers
School culture
Student
Performance
Previous Literature
 Much attention to, and controversy over,
middle schools (6-8)
 Four previous good quality studies
 Middle
schools lower on-time high school graduation
 K-8s in Philadelphia outperform middle schools
 Higher self-esteem and perceived safety in K-8 vs.
middle schools
 6th graders in elementary school have fewer
behavioral problems relative to those in middle
school
Considerable experimentation but little evidence
 Five-fold
increase in percentage of middle
schools (6-8) between 1971 and 2002
 Recent
trend toward K-8 schools
 Considerable
experimentation with grade
span as policy reform, but little rigorous
evidence on effects for different types of
students
Contributions of Current Study
 Exploits grade span variation in nation’s
largest district (New York City)
 Uses longitudinal student data to track
cohorts over five years

Examines transitions across grades and across schools,
rather a single point in time
 Measure gains in academic performance
between third grade and the eighth grade

Eighth grade critical juncture for high school readiness
Data
 Elementary and middle grades in NYC


915 schools
Approximately 28 grade span configurations
 Include students making “Standard
Academic Progress” (SAP) from 4th to 8th
grade
 Track students’ “academic paths”
Sequence of grade span configurations a student might attend
between 4th and 8th grades (e.g. K-5 to 6-8)
Trends in Grade Span
More K-5 and 6-8
Fewer K-6 and 7-8
More K-8
Many Paths From 4th to 8th Grade
Examples of Paths
Articulate as expected
K-5 to 6-8
K-8
Percent of students
47%
4%
Graduate on time and joined midstream
K-6 to 6-8
9%
Switch early to be on time at next level
K-6 to 6-8 early
5%
Analyses
 Basic models:
Regress eighth grade scores (math and reading) on
academic paths, controlling for third grade scores and a
variety of student characteristics
 Sensitivity analyses



Attrition
Non-SAP students
Interactions with race and performance
Do Grade Spans Look Different?
Yes!
For example K-8 compared to 6-8:
with lower performance in 3rd grade
-- end with higher performance in 8th grade
-- have lower percentage of white and Asian
-- have higher percentage of black
-- have poorer students
-- start
Important to control for these differences
Academic Paths: 8th graders in 2001-2002, SAP Cohort
K-8
K-6 to 7-8
K-4 to 5-8
K-5 to 6-9
Math
0.12
Reading
0.18
Articulate on Time and Joined in Midstream
K-6 to 6-8
K-6 to 7-9
K-5 to 5-8
K-6 to 5-8
K-5 to K-8
0.10
0.16
0.12
0.19
Articulate Early to be on Time at Next Level
K-6 to 6-8 early
K-8 to 6-8
K-5 to 5-8 early
Threats to Validity and Unanswered Questions
 Attrition bias from exclusion of exiting and retained
students

Approach: Correction for non-random attrition in panel data
 Are effects different for non-SAP students who enter
later?

Approach: Model of short-term gains for retained and exiting
students
 Are effects different by sub-groups?
 Approach: Interactions between grade span and student
characteristics (race, low performance)
What happens when correct for attrition out of
SAP?
Still find comparatively better performance in math
and reading for students in:
K-8 whole time
Switch into K-8
A few others (K-6/5-8)
Students who enter late or are retained
Do they do as well in K-8’s as SAP students who have
been there since 3rd grade?
Yes and sometimes better
from 7th to 8th grade for students in SAP and latecomers
SAP always do better in K-8
New entrants and retainees do better even or the same
Subgroup Analysis: 8th Graders in 2001-02
 Do lower achieving students do better in some
paths? (Compared to K-5/6-8)
Yes, but only in math. They do better in K-8
 In reading, they do worse in K-8 and most other paths.

 Do black, Hispanic or Asian Students do better in
some paths?
 No particular paths stand out
Conclusions
Grade span appears to matter
 Significantly
larger long-term gains for students
in K-8
 Effects hold in various specifications and for
students not making standard academic
progress
 Little evidence of differential effects for
minority and low-performing students
Cautions and unanswered questions
 What
features of K-8 are particularly
effective?
 Would
scaling up to all K-8 have same
effects?
 Experimental
designs could improve
validity of results