Dual-language elementaries score LOWER on ELA — but that's not the whole story
A reproducibility log: the data this analysis touched, the queries it ran, the outside sources it leaned on, and the steps a third party would follow to re-run it.
Summary
Identified dual-language elementary schools (by name keywords and by topic_tags / programmatic flags), compared ELA proficiency with citywide ES, and separated the ELL-share confounder.
Data sources
- Database tableschools
One row per New York City public school (DBN, name, district, borough, school_type, grade_band, latest_enrollment, proclivity_decile, proclivity_score, closed_at, admission_category).
- Database tableschool_year_metrics
Long-format per-school per-year metric facts (school_dbn, year, metric_key, subgroup, value, suppressed). Loaded from DOE/NYSED public files via scripts/loaders/*.
Steps
Filter schools whose name contains 'Dual Language' or whose topic_tags includes 'dual_language'.
Pull ELA proficiency + ELL/FORMER_ELL subgroup breakdown to disentangle the program effect from the ELL-share confounder.
Caveats
Dual-language programs that test in English understate the bilingual proficiency of students. ELA-proficiency comparisons across instruction language are not apples-to-apples.
Reproduce
Clone the repo, set DATABASE_URL to a Postgres with the project schema loaded, run `npx tsx scripts/loaders/<source>.ts` for any not-yet-loaded data, then issue the queries in the Steps section. The story page also lists the exact `metric_key`/`subgroup`/`year` filters used. Searchable by the answer's headline number — every figure is recomputable from the queries shown.
The recipe lives at data/stories/recipes.ts in the repo. Corrections welcome.