Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

There is a great deal of research that supports the notion that access to resources that improve quality of life of students has a meaningful impact of academic performance. Urban public schools, in the face of shrinking budgets and growing complexity of issues pertaining to concentrated poverty, are finding their capacity to educate students of low-income communities to be insufficient due to resource scarcity. Public service agencies, with this in mind, work to meet the needs of these vulnerable populations by offering services that schools lack the capacity to provide. While the impact of individual programs on academic outcomes is well documented in education and public administration research, little work exists that explores the impact of the presence of networks, over-saturation, or gaps in available services on academic performance metrics of disadvantaged students from communities having high rates of childhood poverty. This paper explores the relationship between location of governmental and nonprofit programs and academic performance metrics of students in the city of Wilmington, Delaware. The program and service categories considered were selected based on existing research regarding their impact on academic outputs; various needs assessments conducted in the region since 2011; and an education policy reform plan being proposed by community stakeholders, academic professionals, and public service leadership that live and work in the area. The data analyzed consists of the performance data of the city’s 11,527 students (standardized test scores, absence rates, dropout rates, and graduation rates), census poverty data, and geospatial data regarding student residence and 415 public service agencies located in the city. The research uses geospatial mapping and regression analysis to determine if meaningful relationships exist between the locations of public service agencies, the geographic areas covered by those agencies, and academic performance metrics; with statistical significance being indicative of the potential impact of organizational networks that address the complex needs of impoverish students and families.