«The Black -
White Test Score Gap: Why It Persists and What Can Be Done.»
«Names, Expectations, and the Black -
White Test Score Gap.»
The first book, Steady Gains and Stalled Progress, edited by Katherine Magnuson and Jane Waldfogel, includes chapters by social scientists who are intent on figuring out why the black -
white test score gap narrowed sharply during the 1970s and 1980s, but then stayed constant, or even widened.
An article by Roland Fryer and Steve Levitt that was published in Education Next in 2004 took a close look at the causes of the black -
white test score gap.
Many of the charter schools in our study aspire to boost minority achievement, so a natural benchmark for charter effectiveness is the black -
white test score gap.
As scholars Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips write, «Reducing the black -
white test score gap would do more to promote racial equality than any other strategy that commands broad political support.»
The first paper, released in July 2009 by Roland Fryer and Steven Levitt, found that while there are no mean differences between boys and girls in math when they start school, girls gradually lose ground, so that the gap between boys and girls after six years of schooling is half as large as the black -
white test score gap.
They show that, for fourth graders, the black -
white test score gap had, in the 12 years prior to the passage of NCLB, opened up by 7 points.
This suggests that the black -
white test score gap is extremely sensitive to environmental factors, to social factors, and to policy factors.»
Closing the black -
white test score gap would probably do more to promote racial equality in the United States than any other strategy now under serious discussion.
If we found the equivalent of halving the black -
white test score gap from RCTs from a new cancer drug, everyone would be jumping for joy — even if the benefits were found only for certain types of cancer.
The most recent decade has been one of «stalled progress» in narrowing the black -
white test score gap (Neal 2005, Magnuson and Waldfogel, 2008).
Readers may also wish to read an important new essay by sociologist George Farkas, «The Black -
White Test Score Gap» (Contexts, Spring 2004), which says that the racial rift is caused, more than any other thing, by divergent child - rearing practices (and preschool opportunities).
, The Black -
White Test Score Gap (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1998).
The estimated gain from being offered a voucher is only half as large as the gain from switching to private school (in response to being offered a voucher), so the estimated impact of offering vouchers is no more than one - eighth as large as the black -
white test score gap.
And depending upon which scale one uses, vouchers appear to reduce the black -
white test score gap by either one - quarter or one - third.
«The results indicate this combination of programs may potentially be one way to narrow the black -
white test score gap.»
T. J. Kane, in C. Jencks and M. Phillips, Eds., The Black -
White Test Score Gap (Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 1998).
Not exact matches
In fact, the researchers report that «if similar success could be achieved for all minority students nationwide, it could close the
gap between
white and minority
test scores by at least a third, possibly by more than half.»
For instance, in an April 28, 2004, column, Winerip described a school in Florida as unfairly penalized by NCLB, but he failed to mention that the school reported low overall
test scores and had significant achievement
gaps between
white and minority students.
Over the past few years, the districts profiled in the report — the Houston Independent School District, the Sacramento City Unified School District, the Charlotte - Mecklenburg school system in North Carolina, and the Chancellor's District in New York City, a special 25,000 - student district of low - performing schools — have improved
test scores and narrowed achievement
gaps between minority and
white students.
This is nearly half the size of the black -
white test -
score gap in reading.
Researcher: Nation's Future Depends on Raising
White, Nonwhite
Test Scores Observer & Eccentric, August 21, 2011» «If we can't make it happen, we may have already peaked as a nation,» said [Senior Lecturer] Ronald Ferguson, faculty co-chair and director of the Achievement
Gap Initiative at Harvard.»
For example, the effect of a one - hour later start time on math
scores is roughly 14 percent of the black -
white test -
score gap, 40 percent of the
gap between those eligible and those not eligible for free or reduced - price lunch, and 85 percent of the gain associated with an additional year of parents» education.
On the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, Chicago was the sole district to narrow its
test -
score gap between
white students and black students in 4th - grade math compared to 2015.
Contributors to the Magnuson and Waldfogel collection are interested only in the third of those questions, with specific reference to the
test -
score gap between African American and
white children.
Judging by the currently available statistical evidence, eliminating the
test score gap would sharply increase black college - graduation rates, making them nearly equal to
white rates.
They emphasized that, while many people might think closing the
gap is impossible, black -
white test scores, evolving research on intelligence development, and motivation as a nation are all indicative that a future without the achievement
gap may exist.
This comports with the interpretation that average peer achievement influences everyone's
test scores, since Asians
score higher than whites in math overall (the Asian -
white score gap is positive and relatively large in math, 0.62 of a standard deviation in the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades).
Several factors affect poor children's academic performances, and more money doesn't always close the
gap between their
test scores and the
scores of their
white, middle class counterparts, Neill told Education World.
What to make of the
white - black SAT
test -
score gap, for instance, which is bigger than ever?
In both math and reading, the national
test -
score gap in 1965 was 1.1 standard deviations, implying that the average black 12th grader placed at the 13th percentile of the
score distribution for
white students.
For example, from 1990 to 2007, black students» scale
scores increased 34 points on the NAEP 4th - grade mathematics
tests (compared with a 28 - point increase for whites), and the black -
white achievement
gap declined from 32 to 26 points during this period.
No wonder urban schools have done so little to close the black -
white test -
score gap, a topic that Jens Ludwig deconstructs in this issue's check the facts.
It is true that the
test -
score gap between black and
white students narrowed during the 1980s, only to stagnate in the»90s.
The loss was equal to about 15 percent of the expected
gap in
test scores between black and
white students at that age.
But after its passage into law,
white, black and Hispanic students all made gains and the widening of the
white - minority
test score gap was reversed.
Furthermore, the gains are approximately equivalent to a third of the black -
white gap in
test scores among students in the experiment.
Jens Ludwig («The Great Unknown,» Check the Facts, Summer 2003) raises a number of important questions about the U.S. Department of Education's study of the black -
white test -
score gap.
In Ohio, the findings were positive: The introduction of voucher competition modestly improved the outcomes of students who remained in their public schools — in the range of one - eighth of the magnitude of the black -
white test -
score gap.
Does the black -
white test -
score gap narrow or widen through the school years?
African American students advanced from the bottom quarter of Chicago's
test score distribution for
white students to the 46th percentile in reading and math, essentially closing the racial achievement
gap.
For instance, in a study published in 1998, Meredith Phillips and her colleagues reported a raw black -
white test -
score gap of more than one standard deviation in vocabulary using data sets collected between 1980 and 1987.
The results are quite surprising: after adjusting the data for the effects of only a few observable characteristics, the black -
white test -
score gap in math and reading for students entering kindergarten essentially disappeared.
This school
test -
score gap is even wider between black and Latino students and
white students.
A study of
test scores in each of the city's public elementary schools finds that diversity does not erase achievement
gaps between
white and minority students.
By the end of 1st grade, however, the black -
white test -
score gap is greater for students who have at least one black teacher.
Hispanic children do not experience this widening
test -
score gap relative to otherwise similar
white students; indeed, they systematically close the
gap, perhaps because their initial
scores are artificially low due to the relative inexperience with the English language among some immigrants and their children (see Figure 2).
Reardon and Portilla noted that other data — from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)-- show that the
white - black and
white - Hispanic
gaps in fourth - grade
test scores likewise narrowed between the same cohorts of children.
Nevertheless, the fact that the black -
white test -
score gap essentially disappears when sufficient controls are included is striking.