Most Popular Books by Ellen Schwartz

Jesse''s project about his immigrant ancestors is due tomorrow and he hasn''t started. In a last-ditch effort to find some information about his great-great grandfather, Yossi, Jesse rummages through the mess in the attic until he finds a little battered travel case, full of pictures, and something else—a Star of David. At first it looks plain and unimportant, but as he holds it in his hand, the star begins to glow. Jesse is in for the surprise, and adventure, of his life as he finds himself becoming the star''s first owner, his own great-great grandfather.

It is 1947 and Yankee fever grips the Bronx. Nine-year-old Joey Sexton joins the neighborhood kids who flock to the park to team up and play. However, Joey is of mixed race and his skin is lighter than the other kids’. He is seldom picked. When Joey’s mother dies, he is sent to live with his mother’s estranged family. Joey is whisked away to Brooklyn. Though it’s just across town, it might as well be a different world. His grandfather, his aunt Frieda, and his ten-year-old cousin Roberta are not only white, they are Jewish. Joey knows nothing about Brooklyn or Judaism. The only thing that’s constant is the baseball madness that grips the community. Only this time, the heroes aren’t Joey’s beloved Yankees. They are the Brooklyn Dodgers, especially Jackie Robinson, a man whose struggle to integrate baseball helped set the stage for black America’s struggle for acceptance and civil rights. Joey’s story takes readers to a time when America’s favorite pastime became a battleground for human rights.

Yossi Mendelsohn works hard to help his family survive after they flee Russia to find a better life in Montreal. He sells newspapers and carries bundles from the garment factory. Yossi longs to play "le hockey" with the French boys, but he has no skates. When his father falls ill and his sister and her fiancé organize a walkout at the factory, Yossi''s dream of lacing on skates seems farther away than ever.

A poignant coming-of-age novel for middle-grade readers about a young boy obsessed with baseball whose life changes drastically when war comes to his Vancouver Japanese community. Ten-year-old Kenny (Kenji in Japanese) worships his older brother, Mickey (Mitsuo), a baseball hero whose outstanding performance on the Asahi baseball team has given him fame and popularity. Despite Kenny''s suspected heart condition, he is determined to practice secretly with Mickey so he, too, can one day try out for the Asahi. But world events soon overtake life in this quiet community. When Japan attacks Pearl Harbor in 1941, everything for Kenny and his family spirals out of control: schools are closed, businesses are confiscated, fathers are arrested and sent to work camps in the BC interior and mothers and children are relocated to internment camps. When Mickey is arrested for a small act of violence, Kenny manages to keep his family''s spirits up, despite the deplorable conditions in camp. Coming across a "vacant" field covered with scrap wood, broken shakes and torn tar paper, Kenny gets permission to clear it and convert it into a baseball field. One by one, the boys in the camp pitch in, and the work gives purpose to their long days. Kenny''s persistence, hard work and big dreams shape the teen he is to become in this story of happiness found despite all odds.

Brendan has it all—captain of the basketball team, good friends, a beautiful girlfriend and a loving family—until he is diagnosed with leukemia. Terrified and convinced that no one understands what he is going through, Brendan faces chemotherapy alone, until he meets Lark. She is also in treatment, although her condition is much worse, and yet she remains positive and hopeful. Brendan is torn between feeling sorry for himself and the love for life that Lark brings to even the simplest thing. Through Lark, he discovers the strength to go on, to fight for survival and to love. This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for teen readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read!

Gwen lives for dancing. When she has the chance to take an intensive - and expensive - course far from home, she knows her parents will object. She also knows that she can usually convince her father to support her. She raises the subject when they''re together skiing, but the discussion turns into an angry confrontation that is cut short by a sudden dreadful avalanche that almost kills her dad. The avalanche leaves terrible damage in its wake. Gwen is left wracked with guilt and injuries that may end her career as a dancer. Her life is complicated by her best friend, Molly. Molly has her own demons, and may either be a danger to Gwen or part of her salvation. Gwen must find a way to make peace with Molly, with her family, and with her own conscience if she is ever again going to experience the freedom that dancing brought her.

Illustrated by Stefan Czernecki Mr Belinsky makes the best bagels in town and his loyal customers come in every day for their favourite kind. But when a fancy new bakery opens across the street, Mr Belinsky decides he must make other things to keep up. The new cakes and pies he makes bring him great success but amid it all something is missing, and Mr Belinsky''s flour-covered hands hold the secret to what it is, and to his happiness. Full colour illustrations throughout. Ages 3 - 7.

Daily life experiences provide the subtexts for the poems and stories of this book. Hopes, dreams, and disappointments are woven into the authors’ story lines. Fantasy and humor provide exclamation points on the pages. This book is an enjoyable read as you curl up with a cozy cup of coffee.

A writer and educator reflects on the idealistic, tumultuous, and eye-opening time she spent as a back-to-the-land hippie homesteader in Kootenays in the 1970s. What compelled a nice Jewish girl from the suburbs of New York to spend a decade of her life as a hippie homesteader in the BC wilderness? Galena Bay Odyssey traces Ellen Schwartz’s journey from a born-and-raised urbanite who was terrified of the woods to a self-determined logger, cabin-builder, gardener, chicken farmer, apiarist, and woodstove cook living on a communal farm in the Kootenays. Part memoir, part exploration of what motivated the exodus of young hippies—including American expatriates, like Ellen and her husband, Bill—to go “back to the land” in remote parts of North America during the 1960s and ’70s, this fascinating book explores the era’s naivety, idealism, and sense of adventure. Like most “back to the land” books, Galena Bay Odyssey describes the physical work involved in clearing land, constructing buildings, and living off of what they produced, but it also traces the complicated journey of discovery this experience brought to Ellen and Bill. Now, nearly half a century later, Ellen reflects on what her homesteader experience taught her about living more fully, honestly, and ecologically.

Take a dash of colorful characters, a pinch of danger, and generous scoops of adventure and you have a terrific culinary mystery for young readers. Five cousins are looking forward to their annual vacation at their grandmother’s cottage. None of them knows that this may be their last such summer. A mining company has set its sights on the land and is determined to seize it. Grandma must produce the deed to prove that the property is really hers, but her memory is not what it used to be, and she can’t find it. The children suspect there may be clues to the deed’s whereabouts somewhere in the family’s cherished trove of recipes. But can they solve the mystery in time? Adult mystery buffs have had many culinary mysteries to choose from. Ellen Schwartz introduces her young readers to a delicious genre. She even provides easy-to-follow and yummy to eat recipes.

The authors show how our advertising-driven culture causes material desires to grow with no corresponding increase in personal time or energy to pursue them.

Selected for inclusion in the Best Books for the Teen Age 2004 List by the New York Public Library. Yoga has been practiced for thousands of years, but its surge in popularity among young people is new. I Love Yoga is not a how-to book. It is the book for those who are already hooked, as well as for those who are just curious about this ancient activity. Ellen Schwartz – author of I’m a Vegetarian – presents the history of yoga, different styles, yoga benefits, concerns, cautions, misconceptions, equipment, and basic postures. There is information for those with physical disabilities and tips on yoga as part of a lifestyle – even for those who do not use the poses – especially to de-stress. Fascinating information is offered in a teen-friendly format.

Whether it’s for health, humane, or taste reasons, many young people are vegetarians. This is the perfect book to help them be healthy ones. It provides a history of vegetarianism, advice on balancing one’s diet, yummy food ideas, and, best of all, ways to cope with sticky situations. How do you handle the inevitable trips to the local burger joint? How do you resist Grandma’s attempts to get you to try just a bit of her famous roast turkey? How do you respond to dire predictions that it’s meat that makes you strong? For young people who are vegetarians, or for those who are thinking about making the switch, this is an invaluable resource.

Taxation of cigarettes and alcohol can raise revenue and reduce consumption of goods with negative external effects. Despite medical and psychological evidence linking their consumption, little previous work has investigated the significance of cross-price effects in cigarette and alcohol consumption. We use individual-level data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to investigate cigarette and alcohol consumption in the US, estimating both own and cross-price elasticities. Results suggest significant cross-price effects. Specifically, we find that higher alcohol prices decrease both alcohol consumption and smoking participation (suggesting a complementarity in consumption), while higher cigarette prices tend to decrease smoking participation but increase drinking. The significance of these findings suggests that further work is warranted to better understand the social and economic relationship between cigarette and alcohol consumption.

Ellen Schwartz''s newest book recounts for readers what she has learned as the mother of a child with a life-threatening disease. Her son Jacob''s extraordinary struggle with Canavan Disease and his impact on Ellen''s life as a wife, mother, friend and teacher has given her the unique perspective from which to view life''s most difficult challenges as its greatest gift. Written for those facing their own personal struggles, the lessons shared in Ellen''s book, explore the ripple effects of an extremely precious life- one that might have been tragic, but instead, is filled with hope, joy, and merit. This how-to format will help others facing life''s greatest challenges, whatever they might be.

Set in Vancouver''s Japan Town in 1942 and following two close friends, a Jewish 10-year-old girl named Esther and a Japanese Canadian 10-year-old girl named Michiko who fall in love with two dolls - Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth. Needless to say there are tears and drama, involving the forced resettlement of Michiko and her family and the disappearance of Esther''s great-aunt Anna, who remains in Germany.

In this paper, we review policy levers that could potentially help close the achievement gap between African-American and white high school students, and draw on the literature to glean recommendations for superintendents, principals and education policy makers. We address, in turn: Policies to recruit and train teachers; policies to improve attendance, discipline and relationships among students and adults; policies to provide additional services to students; policies to increase the types of schools available to African-American teens; policies to engage parents and communities; and policies to effectively use data. In the end, students of all races benefit from good educational practices, adequate resources and strong support. Policies and interventions to improve the performance of African-American students will overlap significantly with those that would improve the performance of students of other races.

We evaluate the effectiveness of small school reform as systemic reform in the nation''s largest school district, New York City. Using rich administrative data for four cohorts of students, we examine the extent to which graduation and testing outcomes improved for all students, not only those in small schools. Our findings show that high school outcomes improved overall, that these improvements were not driven solely by the positive effects observed in small schools, and that the results are robust to student characteristics and selection. Importantly, this paper provides insight into how the introduction of new small schools improves outcomes district-wide.

This study examines the role of school sub-city districts in determining the performance/efficiency of their member schools. The study identifies low and high performing schools and sub-city districts using a three- year panel of data on New York City elementary and middle schools. The results suggest that districts "matter" to school performance, even when they have no revenue raising responsibility. The implication is that accountability systems need to be designed to recognize the role of school districts, and hold them accountable for their performance as well.

With the financial support of several large foundations and the federal government, creating small schools has become a prominent high school reform strategy in many large American cities. While some research supports this strategy, little research assesses the relative costs of these smaller schools. Data on over 200 New York City high schools, from 1996 through 2003, is used to estimate school cost functions relating per pupil expenditures to school size, controlling for school output and quality, student characteristics, and school organization. The authors find that the structure of costs differs across schools depending upon mission--comprehensive or themed. At their current levels of outputs, themed schools minimize per pupil costs at smaller enrollments than comprehensive schools, but these optimally-sized themed schools also cost more per pupil than optimally-sized comprehensive schools. The authors also find that both themed and comprehensive high schools at actual sizes are smaller than their optimal sizes. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.).

The recent foreclosure crisis has plagued nearly every city in the U.S., including New York City. Despite considerable attention to the causes of these mortgage foreclosures and the consequences they have had for communities, we know little about their impacts on individual families and children. Given that more than 2.8 million U.S. property owners received a foreclosure notice in 2010 alone; it is likely that large numbers of children are leaving their homes and moving schools, as well. This policy brief examines the prevalence of foreclosure among buildings housing New York City public school students and explores the relationship between foreclosures and student mobility. Specifically, the authors examine whether children who live in properties entering foreclosure are more likely than their peers to switch schools. Such mobility is of potential concern because research suggests that changing schools is often damaging to children''s academic performance (Hanushek et al., 2004; Schwartz et al., 2007). This brief also explores how the new schools the children attend after moving differ from their origin schools, in terms of student demographics and performance. Our research focuses primarily on elementary and middle school students who attended New York City public schools in the 2003-04 and 2006-07 school years. For additional information on our data and methods, see Been et al. (2011), "Kids and Foreclosures: New York City." Key finding include: (1) 20,453 public school students lived in buildings that entered foreclosure in 2006-07; (2) 61 percent of students living in buildings that entered foreclosure lived in 2-4 family or larger multi-family properties; (3) 57 percent of students living in buildings that entered foreclosure in 2006-07 were black, compared to 33 percent of all other students; (4) Public school students living in buildings in foreclosure were more likely to change schools in the year following a foreclosure notice than other students, and the effect was amplified for children in multi-family buildings; (5) Students living in properties that entered foreclosure were significantly less likely than their peers to leave the New York City public school system in the subsequent year; and (6) Students who moved to new schools after a foreclosure moved to lower-performing schools on average. The change in school quality was no more dramatic, however, than that experienced by other students who moved schools.

The plight of urban schools and their failure to adequately and efficiently educate their students has occupied the national discussion about public schools in America over the last quarter century. While there is little doubt that failing schools exist in rural and suburban locations, the image of city school systems as under-financed, inefficient, inequitable and burdened by students with overwhelming needs is particularly well entrenched in the modern American psyche. As the largest school district in the country, New York City attracts particular attention to its problems. To some extent, this image reflects realities. New York City school children, like many urban students around the country, are more likely to be poor, non-white and immigrants, with limited English skills, and greater instability in their schooling, and the new waves of immigrants from around the world bring students with a formidable array of backgrounds, language skills, and special needs. The resulting changes in the student body pose particular challenges for schools. At the same time, despite a decade of school finance litigation and reform, New York continues to have trouble affording the class sizes, highly qualified teachers and other resources that suburban neighbors enjoy. Finally, there is evidence of continuing segregation and disparities in performance between students of different races and ethnicities.

Research finds that small high schools deliver better outcomes than large high schools for urban students. An important outstanding question is whether this better performance is gained at the expense of losses elsewhere: Does small school reform lift the whole district? We explore New York City''s small high school reform in which hundreds of new small high schools were built in less than a decade. We use rich individual student data on four cohorts of New York City high school students and estimate effects of schools on student outcomes. Our results suggest that the introduction of small schools improved outcomes for students in all types of schools: large, small, continuously operating, and new. Small school reform lifted all boats.

This paper explores the determinants of resource allocation across schools in large districts and examines options for improving resource distribution patterns. Previous research on intra-district allocations consistently reveals resource disparities across schools within districts, particularly in the distribution of teachers. While overall expenditures are sometimes related to the characteristics of students in schools, the ratio of teachers per pupil is consistently larger in high poverty, high-minority and low-performing schools. These teachers, though, generally have lower experience and education levels -- and consequently, lower salaries -- as compared to teachers in more advantaged schools. We explore these patterns in New York City, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio by estimating de facto expenditure equations relating resource measures to school and student characteristics. Consistent with previous research, we find schools that have higher percentages of poor pupils receive more money and have more teachers per pupil, but the teachers tend to be less educated and less well paid, with a particularly consistent pattern in New York City schools. The paper concludes with policy options for changing intra-district resource distributions in order to promote more efficient, more equitable or more effective use of resources. These options include allocating dollars rather than teacher positions to schools, providing teacher pay differentials in hard-to-staff schools and subjects, and adapting current district-based funding formulas to the school (and student) level.

Prior research has provided little evidence that subsidized housing investments generate significant external benefits to their neighborhoods. This paper revisits the external effects of subsidized housing, exploring the case of New York City. Relying on geocoded administrative data, we estimate a difference-in-difference specification of a hedonic regression model. We find significant and sustained external benefits. Spillovers increase with project size, and decrease with distance from the project sites and with the proportion of units in multi-family, rental buildings. Our results are robust to alternative specifications. Some of the benefit appears due to the effect of the replacement of existing disamenity.

Students with disabilities (SWDs) educated in traditional public schools alongside general education students (GENs) typically move to middle school in sixth grade, rather than continuing in a K-8/12. The documented negative effects of this move on GEN academic outcomes suggests similar negative--and perhaps larger--effects on SWDs. Using an instrumental variables strategy and NYC data on nine cohorts of students, we find the middle school transition causes a 0.30 (0.16) standard deviation decline in SWD math (ELA) performance and increases grade retention. Low-income SWDs and SWDs with a specific learning disability or emotional disturbance fare worse. However, the move does not widen the SWD-GEN gap, suggesting the need to ease the middle school transition for all students.

Major increases in immigration and the shift in immigrant origins over the past three decades have substantially changed the composition of New York City''s public schools. Unlike their primarily European predecessors, today''s immigrant students come from countries all over the world, speak a wide variety of languages, and present a range of educational needs and prior schooling experiences. Where do immigrant students come from? How many are new arrivals to the school system? How do their experiences and backgrounds differ from the native-born? This report answers these and other important questions through a statistical portrait of the demographic characteristics and educational experiences of immigrant students in New York City''s elementary and middle schools.

Since its inception as part of the 1965 "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" (ESEA), Title I has provided the largest amount of federal funding aimed at improving the academic achievement of poor children. In this paper, we examine the impact of Title I on school spending and school performance, using New York City public school data. Based on a regression discontinuity design (RD) with panel data, and including separate analyses for elementary/middle and high schools, we estimate local average treatment effects of Title I. Title I provides additional funding for schools serving high concentrations of poor children, but there are few curricular or programmatic constraints. Unfortunately it is possible that Title I funds supplant state or local funds, resulting in muted net impacts on spending and student outcomes. At the same time, the success of Title I in improving test scores offers important insight into the effectiveness of school-based compensatory funding in general, such as weighted student funding within districts or state compensatory aid across districts. Overall, the results indicate that Title I changes the mix of spending, enabling high schools to significantly increase the amount of money they spend on direct services to students and to improve their pupil-teacher ratios (while reducing experienced teachers). Elementary and middle schools do not increase spending as much, which is consistent with our finding that state compensatory education funds may be supplanting some Title I funding in schools. Since schools just below the Title I cutoff are similar to those just above the cutoff, this finding may be an equitable, albeit unintended result. Finally, additional Title I spending does not improve the achievement of students and may even reduce school-wide average test scores in elementary and middle schools. These effects for both spending and scores seem to increase with the length of time schools are Title I eligible and to be stronger for ones that are always Title I eligible compared to those that go in and out of eligibility.

In the United States, public housing developments are predominantly located in neighborhoods with low median incomes, high rates of poverty and disproportionately high concentrations of minorities. While research consistently shows that public housing developments are located in economically and socially disadvantaged neighborhoods, we know little about the characteristics of the schools serving students in these neighborhoods. In this paper, we examine the characteristics of elementary and middle schools attended by students living in public housing developments in New York City. Using the proportion of public housing students attending each elementary and middle school as our weight, we calculate the weighted average of school characteristics to describe the "typical" school attended by students living in public housing. We then compare these characteristics to those of the typical school attended by other students throughout the city in an effort to assess whether public schools systematically disadvantage students in public housing in New York City. Our results are decidedly mixed. On one hand, we find no large differences between the resources of the schools attended by students living in public housing and the schools attended by their peers living elsewhere in the city; on the other hand, we find significant differences in student characteristics and outcomes. The typical school attended by public housing students has higher poverty rates and lower average performance on standardized exams than the schools attended by others. These school differences, however, fail to fully explain the performance disparities: we find that students living in public housing score lower, on average, on standardized tests than their schoolmates living elsewhere- even though they attend the same school. These results point to a need for more nuanced analyses of policies and practices in schools, as well as the outside-of-school factors that shape educational success, to identify and address the needs of students in public housing.

Participation in the federally-subsidized school breakfast program often falls well below its lunchtime counterpart. To increase take-up, many districts have implemented Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC), offering breakfast directly to students at the start of the school day. Beyond increasing participation, advocates claim BIC improves academic performance, attendance, and engagement. Others caution BIC has deleterious effects on child weight. We use the implementation of BIC in NYC to estimate its impact on meals program participation, BMI, achievement, and attendance. While we find large effects on participation, our findings provide no evidence of hoped-for gains in academic performance, nor of feared increases in obesity. The policy case for BIC will depend upon reductions in hunger and food insecurity for disadvantaged children, or its longer-term effects. The following are appended: (1) Mean Annual Breakfast and Lunch Participation Rates: Balanced Panel of Elementary and Middle School; (2) Impact of BIC adoption on meals program participation, 2001-2012--models using school specific linear time trends; (3) Impact of BIC on obesity and BMI--using grade-specific BIC treatment; (4) Impact of BIC on ELA and math achievement--using grade-specific BIC treatment; (5) Impact of BIC on obesity and BMI--using percent of BIC classrooms treatment; and (6) Impact of BIC on ELA and math achievement--using percent of BIC classrooms treatment.