– Findings suggest that a student’s elementary SES composition has a legacy effect on middle school achievement growth net of his
or her own achievement growth and middle school SES composition.
– SES composition effects differ depending on the timing of exposure and a student’s individual free and reduced lunch (FRL) status.
– Findings suggest that early education contexts are critical for math achievement growth in general.
– The authors’ findings show that school segregation by socioeconomic status is problematic for achievement growth for
all students.
– Disadvantages from the elementary school context carry over to the middle school context, and the SES composition effect of students’ middle school depends on students’ prior school experiences.
Current Selections
ClearHow School Socioeconomic Status Affects Achievement Growth across School Transitions in Early Educational Careers
Is There Systemic Meaningful Evidence of School Poverty Thresholds?
-The author review of the literature about the relationships among SES and educational outcomes revealed surprisingly few SES threshold studies relative to the enormous corpus of research on SES composition effects.
– With few exceptions, the very small number of U.S. studies that report thresholds effects typically were conducted by a school district’s internal staff using cross-sectional data (only one year) for a subpopulation of district’s students.
-Conclusions reached in these studies arguably apply only to the students in the district who took part in the study, in the year in which the data were collected.
-The studies described in this report are not an empirical foundation upon which general educational policy regarding SES thresholds can be reliably or validly based.
– Educational decision makers should focus on reducing concentrations of school-level poverty to as low a level as is feasible given the available demographic mix, and avoid policies based on the unsupported notion that there are poverty thresholds above and below which student achievement levels can be predicted.
– There is not yet a body of systematic, reliable, and valid evidence that school poverty thresholds exist, and that they influence student achievement outcomes.
Inequality in Reading and Math Skills Forms Mainly before Kindergarten: A Replication, and Partial Correction, of ‘‘Are Schools the Great Equalizer?’’
– When the authors use the new test scores, they find that variance is substantial at the start of kindergarten and does not grow but actually shrinks over the next two to three years. This finding, which was not evident in the original Great Equalizer
study, implicates the years before kindergarten as the primary source of inequality in elementary reading and math.
– Total score variance grows during most summers and shrinks during most school years, suggesting that schools reduce inequality overall.
– Changes in inequality are small after kindergarten and do not replicate consistently across grades, subjects, or cohorts. That said, socioeconomic gaps tend to shrink during the school year and grow during the summer, while the black-white gap tends to follow the opposite pattern.
– Socioeconomic gaps tend to shrink during the school year and grow during the summer, while the black-white gap tends to follow the opposite pattern.
– Inequality in basic reading and math skill originates mainly in early childhood, before kindergarten begins.
Fighting for Desired Versions of a Future Self: How Young Women Negotiated STEM-Related Identities in the Discursive Landscape of Educational Opportunity
Authors illustrate the local struggles that young women of color at two high schools in the same school district engaged in to construct and maintain STEM-related identities in the context of their high school lives. In particular, authors focus on the local discourses and practices of the school learning environments within and against which four of the young women in the larger study engaged in STEM identity work.
Student–Teacher Ethno-Racial Matching and Reading Ability Group Placement in Early Grades
– Overall, 68% of students in the kindergarten sample and 69% of first grade students were assigned to teachers who share their ethno-racial identity.
– Overall, 38% of kindergarten and 71% in first-grade classes use ability grouping for reading.
– 27% of African American kindergartners were placed in low ability groups compared with 25% of Latino/a kindergartners and 18% of White kindergarten students.
– Around 44% of African American and 46% of Latino/a first graders were placed in low ability groups compared with 37% of White first graders.
– Having a same-race teacher has no direct and independent effect on student placement in higher ability groups in the kindergarten.
– By first grade, placement with same-race teachers has a strong positive and significant effect on Latino/a students’ ability group placement and a marginally positive effect on African American students’ ability group placement.
– Once previous ability group placement is controlled for, placement with same-race teachers continue to be a positive and significant predictor of Latino/a students’ ability group placement in the first grade.
– Teachers’ perceptions about students’ learning abilities are influenced to a certain extent by student–teacher ethno-racial congruence resulting in significant postive effects on higher group placements in kindergarten and first grade.
– Both African American and Latino/a students are significantly less likely to be placed in higher reading ability groups compared with White students.
– Male kindergartners are significantly less likely to be placed in higher ability groups.
– The higher the percentage of African American students in class, the more likely students will be placed in higher ability groups.
– Students from higher SES are more likely to be placed in higher ability groups. However, as the average classroom SES increases, students are significantly less likely to be placed in higher ability groups.
Mind the Gap: Student Researchers Use Secondary Data to Explore Disparities in STEM Education
1) How do students’ math and science self-efficacies relate to students’ post-secondary education plans? Are there differences by gender? 2) Is gender or race related to students’ taking of computer science courses? In the student’s choice of a computer science career? 3) Do students with individualized education plans (IEPs) differ from general education students in their expectations to obtain a degree post high school? Of the students that have an IEP, are there differences in their expectations for post-secondary plans by socioeconomic status? 4) Does participating in extracurricular activities (EA) have an effect on a student’s plans to attend college? Does SES status affect the relationship between participation and educational plans?
The Role of STEM High Schools in Reducing Gaps in Science and Mathematics Coursetaking: Evidence from North Carolina
The authors examined whether underserved students in North Carolina STEM high schools have similar or higher rates of advanced science and mathematics course taking than students in neighboring traditional high schools.
Money or Diversity? An Implementation Analysis of the Voluntary Transfer Program in St. Louis, 1999-2009
How did fiscal resources and human interests affect suburban implementation of the voluntary transfer program between 1999 and 2009?
Science Achievement Gaps Begin Very Early, Persist, and Are Largely Explained by Modifiable Factors
- How large are general knowledge gaps occurring in kindergarten, and to what extent do these continue to occur by the end of first grade?
- As children move from third to eighth grade, what is their typical initial level (i.e., intercept) and rate of achievement growth (i.e., slope) in science?
- Are these gaps consistent with stable, cumulative (i.e., gap increasing), or compensatory (i.e., gap decreasing) achievement growth trajectories? How do these initial third-grade science achievement levels and third- to eighth-grade growth trajectories vary by children’s race, ethnicity, language, and family SES status? How are a more general set of child- and family-level characteristics, including parenting quality, related to typical levels of third-grade science achievement in the United States as well as to achievement growth from third to eighth grade?
- To what extent are the third-grade science achievement gaps, as well as third- to eighth-grade science achievement growth, explained by such modifiable factors as general knowledge, reading and mathematics achievement, and behavioral self-regulation? How much of children’s later science achievement can be predicted by their first-grade achievement-related knowledge, skills, and behaviors?
- With the aforementioned first-grade predictive factors accounted for, how important are the modifiable factors of children’s subsequent reading and mathematics achievement, and behavioral self-regulation at each of third, fifth, and eighth grades to their science achievement during these grades?
- To what extent does a school’s academic climate and racial, ethnic, and economic composition explain children’s science achievement, over and above the afore- mentioned child- and family-level factors?
In the Guise of STEM Education Reform: Opportunity Structures and Outcomes in Inclusive STEM-Focused High Schools
1) How do eight inclusive (nonselective) urban public (non-charter) high schools (two STEM-focused and two comprehensive, traditionally structured) approach and organize opportunities for STEM for low-income historically underrepresented minorities? 2) What written and enacted opportunity structures are available, over a three-year time span (2010-2013), for high-achieving (top track) students at the four STEM-focused schools? 3) How do select teachers and counselors perceive available opportunity structures? 4) How do these opportunity structures position high-achieving students for further study and a career in STEM?
School Choice, Racial Segregation, and Poverty Concentration: Evidence from Pennsylvania Charter School Transfers
1)To what extent are students and schools affected by movement between charter schools and traditional public schools (TPS)? 2) Are student transfers from TPS to brick and mortar (B&M) charter schools associated with increasing racial isolation? How does this vary by geography? 3) Are student transfers from TPSs to charter schools associated with increasing exposure to low-income students? 3) How does this vary by geography? 4) What are the demographic characteristics of the TPSs from which cyber students transfer?
Can Class-Based Substitute for Race-Based Student Assignment Plans? Evidence from Wake County, North Carolina.
1. Were Wake County schools more racially integrated under the race-based or the socioeconomic-based pupil assignment plan? 2. Was overall student achievement higher under the race-based or socioeconomic-based plan? 3. Did achievement gaps increase or decrease under the race-based or socioeconomic-based plan? 4. Was school racial composition correlated with changes in performance under the race-based or socioeconomic assignment plan?
Kindergarten Black-White Test Score Gaps: Re-examining the Roles of Socioeconomic Status and School Quality with New Data
1. What are the Black-White gaps in math, reading, and working memory?
2. Do these gaps change over kindergarten?
3. To what extent does SES explain black-white gaps at kindergarten entry?
4. What role does SES play in the development of black-white gaps over kindergarten?
5. What role do schools play in the development of black-white gaps over kindergarten?
Foundations of Mathematics Achievement: Instructional Practices and Diverse Kindergarten Students
Do teachers’ instructional practices differentially affect the mathematics achievement of kindergarten students whose backgrounds differ in terms of their race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), and mathematic academic readiness?
Inequality in Children's Contexts: Trends and Correlates of Economic Segregation Between School Districts, 1990-2010
How segregated are schools in the 100 largest metropolitan areas by income from the 1990s to the late 2000s? What are possible causes for segregation between the school districts?
Homeless Students and Academic Achievement: Evidence from a Large Urban Area
Is housing status a predictor of student achievement in a large urban district, even after controlling for common correlates like income and race? Is the homelessness effect mediated by attendance? What school-level factors predict homeless student achievement?
STEM Club Participation and STEM Schooling Outcomes
This study evaluates how math club participation influences math GPA and how science club participation influences science GPA. Additionally, this study evaluates how math or science club participation associates with the probability of selecting a STEM major in college.
Equalizing, But Not Greatly: High School Resources and Socioeconomic Inequalities in College Destinations
This study examines if school resources have different effects for low- and high-SES students’ college destinations. This study also examines whether the effects of marks of distinction on college destinations are contingent on student SES.
Predicting High School Students' Interest in Majoring in a STEM Field: Insight into High School Students' Postsecondary Plans
This study examined how various individual, family, and school level contextual factors impact the likelihood of planning to major in one of the science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields for high school students.
High School Economic Composition and College Persistence
The authors examine variation in college persistence according to the economic composition of high schools, which serves as a proxy for unmeasured high school attributes that are conductive to postsecondary success.
The Cost-Effectiveness of Socioeconomic School Integration
1) What is the effect of SES integration on outcomes? 2) Is SES integration a cost effective strategy for diversity? 3) Is SES integration a cost effective strategy for school improvement?
Middle-Income Peers as Educational Resources and the Constitutional Right to Equal Access
Should middle income peers be conceived as educational resources in schools?
Classroom Composition and Racial Differences in Opportunities to Learn
How much variation is there in topic coverage and use of instructional tasks among advanced mathematical courses with the same title? To what extent is there classroom level variation and conditioning on classroom level minority composition for courses of the same title?
Low-Income Engineering Students: Considering Financial Aid and Differential Tuition
1) What are the rates of participation in Engineering undergraduate programs at two public, research universities by socio-economic status? 2) What is the actual cost of pursuing a degree in Engineering at two public, research universities by socio-economic status? 3) How does financial aid (e.g., Pell Grants, state aid, institutional aid) fluctuate over time for low-income and other students in Engineering and non-Engineering fields? 4) What are the graduation rates for students in Engineering and non-Engineering majors, by socio-economic status?
How Resource Inequality Among High Schools Reproduces Class Advantages in College Destinations
What is the role of schools’ resources in mediating the effects of family SES on students’ postsecondary destinations?
Are ELL Students Underrepresented in Charter Schools? Demographic Trends in New York City, 2006-2008
Empirically examines the gap in English Language Learner (ELL) enrollment between charter schools and traditional public schools and looks at trends in this gap over several years of data in New York City.
Gender Differences in the Effect of Peer SES: Evidence from a Second Quasi-Experimental Case Study
Extends previous research regarding gender differences in the effect of peer SES on reading and math scores among 4th grade Chicago Public School students
Family and Contextual Socioeconomic Effects Across Seasons: When Do they Matter for the Achievement Growth of Young Children?
School & neighborhood contexts influence on differences in children’s achievement growth during the kindergarten and first-grade years across seasons.
Increasing Racial Isolation and Test Score Gaps in Mathematics
Analyze associations between the black-white and Latino-white test score gaps and changes in school minority composition.
An Organizational Perspective on the Origins of Instructional Segregation: School Composition and Use of Within-Class Ability Grouping in American Kindergartens
Investigate the degree to which racial and ethnic composition of schools is associated with use of ability grouping practices as early as kindergarten.
Classroom Peer Effects, Effort, and Race
Develops a theoretical model of educational peer effects and then empiracally tests whether or not they exist.
Equity in Mathematics and Science Outcomes: Characteristics Associated with High and Low Achievement on PISA 2006 in Ireland
Examines student and school background characteristics associated with low and high achievement in mathematics and science on the Programme for International Student Assessment.
School Composition and Context Factors that Moderate and Predict 10th-Grade Science Proficiency
Examine the relationship between 10th grade science proficiency and school context factors related to school environment, courses, and teachers.
Schools Without Diversity: Education Management Organizations, Charter Schools, and the Demographic Stratification of the American School System
The study explores whether these EMO-operated charter schools integrate or segregate students by four key demographic characteristics: ethnic/minority classification, socioeconomic status, disabling condition and English language facility.
Neighborhoods and Schools as Competing and Reinforcing Contexts for Educational Attainment
Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the author analyzes how school and neighborhood contexts are jointly related to high school and college graduation.
Does the SES of the School Matter? An Examination of Socioeconomic Status and Student Achievement Using PISA 2003
The relationship between school SES and student outcomes.
The Hidden Value of School Desegregation: Disentangling School- and Student-Level Effects of Desegregation and Resegregation on the Dropout Problem in Urban High Schools: Evidence from the Cleveland Municipal School District, 1977-1998
Examines the effect of racial desegregation on promoting power of urban high schools.
Examining the Effects of School Composition on North Carolina Student Achievement Over Time
Analyze the effects of school level inputs (including school racial and poverty composition) on North Carolina students’ reading and math achievement from 4th through 8th grade.
Children of Immigrants and Educational Expectations: The Roles of School Composition
Understanding the educational processes of children of immigrant specifically, and all students more broadly, as the immigrant population grows in U.S. schools.
Academic Achievement in the First Year of College: Evidence of the Pervasive Effects of the High School Context
1) What are the unique effects of students’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, precollege academic performance, capital acquisition, and dimensions of the high school context on first year academic performance in college?
2) Do the effects of the high school context differ by students’ demographic or socioeconomic background characteristics?
Profiles of Urban, Low SES, African American Girls' Attitudes Toward Science: A Sequential Explanatory Mixed Methods Study
What are the urban, low SES, African American girls’ attitudes toward science and science
learning? What aspects of their experiences and understandings contribute to differences in attitudes?
Social Class, School and Non-School Environments, and Black/White Inequalitites in Children's Learning
How might schools exacerbate black/white disparities in learning while simultaneously slowing the growth of social class gaps?
Low-Income Students and the Socioeconomic Composition of Public High Schools
Potential problems suggested by the “frog pond” perspective about the effects of socioeconomic desegregation in nonachievement domains.