In the most rigorous study of integrated student support to date, researchers confirm the positive impacts of City Connects on student achievement. The study, Estimating the Impact of Integrated Student Support on Elementary School Achievement: A Natural Experiment, finds that students who are randomly assigned to City Connects schools score higher on state standardized tests in both Math and English Language Arts than their peers in other schools.
City Connects—which aims to combat the impacts of poverty and other out-of-school factors by linking students with holistic support and enrichment—is a model of integrated student support that serves around 200 schools across five states and two countries. Over the past two decades, researchers have linked the program to a multitude of positive student outcomes, including higher standardized test scores, lower rates of chronic absenteeism and grade retention, higher academic performance and engagement, and increased high school and post-secondary graduation rates. While these previous studies have provided empirical evidence to show the impact of City Connects, this latest study is the first to utilize randomization—a powerful research method—across elementary schools in looking at the impact of this intervention.
“The large positive achievement gains we saw in this study matched previous findings from multiple other studies investigating the same thing. So there is a consistency to the story. And that story is that integrated student support seems to work. Children seem to do better when both their academic and non academic challenges are tended to,” said Jordan Lawson, Research Associate at Boston College’s Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children and lead author of the report. “This latest evidence not only matches the previous findings, but it’s the strongest evidence we have regarding the efficacy of integrated student support thus far.”
A randomized controlled study of City Connects or other inventions is often nearly impossible to create. But this study was able to use existing randomization thanks to the Boston Public Schools’ kindergarten enrollment lottery system. Because some students in this large, urban district are randomly assigned to schools, researchers could compare students randomly assigned to schools with and without City Connects.
Analyzing data for nearly 2,500 students, researchers were able to determine that students who were randomly assigned to schools with City Connects scored significantly higher on standardized tests in third, fourth, and fifth grade than those who were randomly assigned to schools without City Connects.
For fifth graders, student achievement improved by as much as 20 percentile points. This level of improvement is equivalent to about 90 percent of the size of the average estimated Black-White achievement gap, and about 50 percent of the size of the estimated gap between students from high- and low-income families. As more policymakers and practitioners look to address inequities and reduce barriers to learning, this study provides strong evidence of the notable impact City Connects can have.
“The major takeaway is that there’s hope. There’s an evidence base that strongly suggests we can somewhat level the playing field for students and move toward creating an educational environment where all students have a fair chance to succeed by addressing important out-of-school contextual factors in a systematic, intentional way with an approach like integrated student support, (as demonstrated by City Connects),” Lawson said.
In addition to lead author Jordan L. Lawson, this research was conducted by Laura M. O’Dwyer, Eric Dearing, Anastasia E. Raczek, Claire Foley, Noman Khanani, Mary E. Walsh, Yan R. Leigh with support from an advisory committee including Henry Braun, Emily Doolittle, Parag Pathak, Lisa Gennetian, Amy Heberle, Deoksoon Kim, Terrence Lee-St. John, Pamela Morris, Richard Murnane, Caroline Vuilleumier, Paul Xu, and Courtney Pollack.
