Yes, schools can influence students’ later civic engagement, finds a new study.
An evaluation by Mathematica Policy Research found students who enrolled in Democracy Prep charter schools, which emphasize citizenship and voting, had much higher rates of registering to vote and voting than a control group of students.
Researchers compared civic-engagement patterns for students who were offered a spot in the school via New York City’s school lottery, with those who applied but were not, and from that data derived the effect on those students who actually enrolled in a Democracy Prep school.
