Building on prior work with Democracy Prep Public Schools, I was delighted to join forces with Brian Gill, Emilyn Whitesell, Charles Tilley, Liz Potamites, and Mariel Ficucane from Mathematica Policy Research on this new study out today: The Impact of Democracy Prep Public Schools on Civic Participation

The takeaway finding is simple, and important: students admitted via random lottery admission to a Democracy Prep school were 16 percentage points more likely to be registered to vote upon graduation and 12 percentage points more likely to vote in a presidential election.

Our high school choice app, the NYC High School Application Guide, was recently profiled by The 74 Million. This app, which can be used on a desktop, tablet, or smartphone, was developed by the Heckscher Family Foundation for Children in collaboration with our team.

Our study, “Leveling the Playing Field for High School Choice: Results from a Field Experiment of Informational Interventions” was released today as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper. The paper reports the results of a field experiment in 165 high-poverty New York City middle schools designed to help students navigate a complex high school choice process and access higher-performing schools. This paper and related publications can be found on our project website.

I'm happy to announce that I'll be taking on a more formal role at NYU's Research Alliance for New York City Schools as a Senior Technical Advisor. I have collaborated with the Research Alliance on a number of projects over the years, and am excited to take this next step.

My colleagues and I had a letter to the New York Times published.  While the high school admissions process in NYC is complex--with room for reform--our ongoing work suggests that carefully-designed and targeted information can make the process easier.