The Medium-Term Impacts of High-Achieving Charter Schools

Using survey data from the Promise Academy in the Harlem Children's Zone, we estimate the effects of high-performing charter schools on human capital, risky behaviors, and health outcomes. Six years after the random admissions lottery, youths offered admission to the Promise Academy middle school score 0.279 (0.073) standard deviations higher on academic achievement outcomes, 0.067 (0.076) standard deviations higher on an index of academic attainment, and 0.313 (0.091) standard deviations higher on a measure of on-time benchmarks. Females are 10.1 percentage points less likely to be pregnant as teenagers, and males are 4.4 percentage points less likely to be incarcerated.