Friday, April 29, 2016

Many school districts and metropolitan areas have larger or smaller achievement gaps than predicted



This study estimates racial/ethnic achievement gaps in several hundred metropolitan areas and several thousand school districts in the United States using new data based on the results of roughly 200 million standardized math and reading tests administered to elementary and middle school students from 2009-2012.

The authors find substantial geographic variation in the magnitude of achievement gaps, ranging from nearly 0 in some places to larger than 1.2 standard deviations in others. A vector of economic, demographic, segregation and schooling characteristics variables explains roughly three-quarters of the geographic variation in these gaps. The strongest correlates of achievement gaps are racial/ethnic differences in parental income, parental education, and racial/ethnic segregation.

Nonetheless, even after adjusting for racial socioeconomic inequality and segregation, many school districts and metropolitan areas have larger or smaller achievement gaps than predicted, suggesting that other forces are at work as well.


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