1. Opportunity Index: Policy Presentation to School Committee
Dr. Dan O’Brien, Northeastern University &
Dr. Nancy Hill, Harvard University
Boston Area Research Initiative (BARI)
Dr. Colin Rose
Assistant Superintendent of Opportunity and Achievement Gaps
Boston Public Schools

2. Opportunity Index Policy Statement
The Boston Public Schools will formally adopt the “Opportunity Index” as a district-wide tool for making decisions that drive equity, coherence and innovation. Aligned with the School Committee’s Opportunity and Achievement Gaps Policy, the Opportunity Index uses data from students’ home neighborhoods along with individual and family level data as a means for measuring opportunity gaps throughout the district. In turn, the Boston Public Schools will close these opportunity gaps by using the Index to make decisions, such as resource allocation, program evaluation, and other prospective and retrospective assessments. The Index will be updated annually to ensure the most predictive factors and recent information available are incorporated.

3. Why Do We Need an Opportunity Index
We know, and research supports, that there are many variables outside schools’ control that affect student achievement. Students come to school with an invisible backpack of varied opportunity.
Our Challenge: Although many of our measures (eg. WSF) align to national best practices, we feel our current measures of student need are too blunt…and we lack a common equity framework that we use as a tool for making equity-driven decisions.
The better we match need with resources, the closer we get to closing opportunity gaps.
WSF does a good job right now but introducing more variable that matter will bring us to the next level of equity
Students come to school with

4. What is the Opportunity Index
The Opportunity Index is a powerful new tool for examining the needs of our students and their schools as a means toward increasing educational equity across the district; it will serve as a more robust, accurate, and differentiated measure of student and school need.
The Opportunity Index is a composite index that introduces a range of data that is outside of the schools’ control, yet is predictive of students’ academic outcomes, including neighborhood and individual/family variables. By rolling multiple measures into one, more accessible metric, BPS will be able to direct resources and supports to the students who need it most.

5. Equity, Coherence, and Innovation
Aligns to Opportunity and Achievement Gaps Policy and Implementation Plan
Aligns to the professional learning and other tools of equity inside central office and all of our schools in the district
Resource allocation as a “values statement”
OAG Objective 5.3:
Demonstrate equity, quality, and impact in funding and resources.
Aligns to the equity conversations we are having around our curriculum and pedagogy around the Essential of Instructional equity, our Culturally and Linguistically Sustaining Practices work both at central office and every school in the district, and other tools such as the BPS racial equity tool that is being rolled out this year.
Quite often people say resource allocation is a values statement- this in another step in saying equity is our value.

6. BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
MISSION: Create a place-based Opportunity Index that captures inequities that arise from factors outside of the control of schools.
Akshata
It is a “place-based” composite index, based on factors such as household income, employment rates, student academic performance, and crime in the neighborhoods of Boston using census tracts
A composite score is calculated for each of the 177 U.S. Census tracts in the City of Boston, and each tract is then coded into one of five “Opportunity Zones.” Zone 1 includes neighborhoods with higher incomes, higher employment, higher academic performance, lower crime, and lower absenteeism; Zone 5 includes neighborhoods with lower incomes, lower employment, lower academic performance, higher crime, and higher absenteeism.
In the current version of the index, each indicator is weighted equally, but we have more academic and crime indicators, weighting those two areas heavier

7. BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
MISSION: Create a place-based Opportunity Index that captures inequities that arise from factors outside of the control of schools.
Akshata
It is a “place-based” composite index, based on factors such as household income, employment rates, student academic performance, and crime in the neighborhoods of Boston using census tracts
A composite score is calculated for each of the 177 U.S. Census tracts in the City of Boston, and each tract is then coded into one of five “Opportunity Zones.” Zone 1 includes neighborhoods with higher incomes, higher employment, higher academic performance, lower crime, and lower absenteeism; Zone 5 includes neighborhoods with lower incomes, lower employment, lower academic performance, higher crime, and higher absenteeism.
In the current version of the index, each indicator is weighted equally, but we have more academic and crime indicators, weighting those two areas heavier
Residential Segregation in Boston
(% White by census tract)

8. BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
MISSION: Create a place-based Opportunity Index that captures inequities that arise from factors outside of the control of schools.
Akshata
It is a “place-based” composite index, based on factors such as household income, employment rates, student academic performance, and crime in the neighborhoods of Boston using census tracts
A composite score is calculated for each of the 177 U.S. Census tracts in the City of Boston, and each tract is then coded into one of five “Opportunity Zones.” Zone 1 includes neighborhoods with higher incomes, higher employment, higher academic performance, lower crime, and lower absenteeism; Zone 5 includes neighborhoods with lower incomes, lower employment, lower academic performance, higher crime, and higher absenteeism.
In the current version of the index, each indicator is weighted equally, but we have more academic and crime indicators, weighting those two areas heavier
Racial Segregation in Boston
(% White by census tract)
Individual and Family Characteristics Matter

9. Academic Outcomes Between School Variations in Need
Schematic of our theoretical and policy model
Home Disparities
--Family SES
-Educational Activities
Between School Variations in Need
Academic Outcomes
OI Assesses & accounts for
Residential Segregation
Neighborhood Disparities
-SES
-Resources
The neighborhood disparities is the “inequitable consequence of living in a particular neighborhood.” The NOI wants to account for the unrandom nature of place
Adapted from Reardon, S. Kalogrides, D. & Shores, K. (2016) The geography of racial/ethnic test score gaps.
Center for Educational Policy Analysis Working Paper (16-10)

10. ELL, SPED, and FRP Lunch still matter, too.
Bottom Line First…
Neighborhoods matter
Neighborhoods differed by as much as ~20 pts. on MCAS scores.
Driven especially by public safety, socioeconomic status, and academic attainment of adults.
ELL, SPED, and FRP Lunch still matter, too.
“Risk” indicators are a great way to predict future outcomes.
Though they don’t tell us why.

11. Neighborhood Constructs
BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Neighborhood Constructs
Academic Attainment (Adult)
Public Safety
Public Health
Physical Disorder
Socioeconomic Status
Newcomer
Residential Stability
Custodianship

12. **METHODOLOGICAL MINUTE**
BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
**METHODOLOGICAL MINUTE**
Isolating “Neighborhood Effects”
Compare Across:
Neighborhood-level factors
Compare within:
Individual-level factors

13. **METHODOLOGICAL MINUTE**
BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
**METHODOLOGICAL MINUTE**
Multilevel Models
Accounts for the fact that people living in the same neighborhood are more similar to each other than people living in different neighborhood.
Really important for racial and socioeconomic residential segregation
Accounts for all other factors being considered

14. Effects of Neighborhood on MCAS Scores
Academic Attainment (Adult)
Public Safety
Public Health
Physical Disorder
Socioeconomic Status
Newcomer
Residential Stability
Custodianship

15. Testing Neighborhood Effects
Note: .03 ≈ 2.5 pts. between the lowest and highest scoring neighborhood

16. Neighborhood Opportunity Index
Neighborhoods matter…
…but there are clearly individual factors “outside of the control of schools.”
Compare Across:
Neighborhood-level factors

17. Individual Demographics
BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS
What do we mean by individual factors?
Individual Demographics
Prior School
Experiences
Attendance
Suspensions
Course Failures
MCAS Failures
FRPL/Poverty
Special Services
SPED
ELL

18. Testing Individual-Level Factors
Note: .1 ≈ 1.6 pts. difference between groups.

19. Predicting Performance
Academic aptitude is formed continuously through development.
Could we use performance in a previous school to determine the needs of students moving forward?
Using “risk” indicators.
Note: not possible for elementary school students

20. Predicting Performance
Note: .1 ≈ 1.6 pts. difference in test score.

21. Conclusions:
Place matters, the NOI can account for up to 20 points in MCAS
Various factors matter, including SES, Safety, Adult Ed Attainment; for elementary, physical disorder & custodianship.
Individual characteristics matter even more (the OI)
For older students, we can predict future performance with “risk” indicators
But individual-level characteristics provide additional precision
The OI can be effectively used to account for a substantial amount of the variation outside of the control of schools
It accounts for place-based differences in access to resources and stressful environments…
And individual-level inequities across families within and across neighborhoods.

22. Possible Uses for the Index:
Uses Are Numerous- Here Are a Few Examples:
Partnerships
Programming
Funding
Equity analyses
Example:
Expanded Learning Time - Summer Learning
National Equity Leader in Resource Allocation:
Innovative - Nothing as robust right now in K-12 education
Advocating for Equity - Local, State, National
We are working Quite often people say resource allocation is a values statement- this in another step in saying equity is our value.
We do a fairly good job already with things such as WSF,

23. List of People to thank