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Abstract:
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With increasing demands for schools to produce high test scores, understanding what influences children's success is of great importance. While stability has been shown to be a key indicator of children's academic performance, specific mechanisms of stability are unclear. Existing research indicates that housing tenure itself influences children's school performance, but these studies have used static, rather than dynamic measures of home ownership status. This paper builds on this research by examining the effect of housing tenure change from rented to owner-occupied housing on the school performance of early elementary-aged children. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, the results reveal that changing housing tenure during first to third grade is a statistically significant predictor of children's achievement test scores in math, although not reading. While additional research is needed, this finding provides modest evidence of the promise of programs designed to help homeownership, particularly among families with young children, to also enhance children's academic success. |