Peer Effects in Urban Schools: Assessing the Impact of Classroom Composition on Student Achievement

  1. Students who have repeated the current grade have a higher reading score in the next academic year whereas being young for the grade has no significant relationship with achievement.
  2. Lagged behavior grades are significant and positive the higher last year’s behavior grade, the higher the next year’s achievement score.
  3. Once being a free lunch student is accounted for (which has a coefficient that is significant and negative), neighborhood characteristics are not statistically significant in determining student achievement. Rather, it is the student’s individual characteristics and school environment that affect achievement outcomes.
  4. The classroom proportion of students receiving free lunch is negative and significantly related to student achievement. The count of students with behavior problems is also negative and significant, indicating that students with behavior problems detract from student achievement. An increase in the number of girls in a classroom raises individual student achievement.
  5. There are significant peer effects in reading and math standardized test achievement, even after holding constant student and neighborhood demographics, and teacher characteristics.