@EdWorkingPaper{ai26-1513,
title = "Institutional Resources or Changing Compositions? Unpacking Neighborhood Effects on Education",
author = "Jason Jabbari, Andrew Foell, DeMarcus Jenkins, Yung Chun, Odis Johnson Jr.",
institution = "Annenberg Institute at Brown University",
number = "1513",
year = "2026",
month = "July",
URL = "http://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1513",
abstract = {Children in neighborhoods marked by concentrated poverty and racial isolation face persistent educational barriers, yet the mechanisms underlying neighborhood effects remain poorly understood. This study employs a multi-method analysis of the Near North Side Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) in St. Louis, Missouri—the nation's largest mixed-income redevelopment program—to unpack two core mechanisms: institutional resources and compositional changes. Using nine years of student-level administrative data, we apply a Callaway and Sant'Anna Difference-in-Differences model to estimate academic effects, Synthetic Control Models to assess displacement and demographic change, and Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis to trace mobility patterns. Results reveal large, significant gains in ELA and Math for students residing in and attending CNI schools, operating on distinct timescales. Critically, these gains occurred without racial compositional changes, directly challenging the assumption that demographic diversification is a necessary precondition for mixed-income redevelopments to improve educational outcomes for Black children.},
}