– School-based hiring is associated with a larger gap in the distribution of teacher quality between advantaged and disadvantaged schools.
– There is an association between school-based hiring and inequality of achievement based on socioeconomic status of students.
– School-based hiring may contribute to exacerbating inequality in learning opportunities and increasing family background’s positive effect on achievement.
– ESCS (a proxy of family SES) is positively associated with student performance in mathematics and science.
– School-based hiring is not associated with student performance on average, but school-based hiring is associated with the larger achievement gap between high- and low-SES students.
– More school autonomy in hiring was associated with a larger gap in the distribution of teacher quality across schools as well as larger socioeconomic achievement inequality.
– School-level mean SES has a positive and significant relationship with math and science achievement.
Current Selections
ClearSchool-based Teacher Hiring and Achievement Inequality: A Comparative Perspective
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.
Empowering Teachers to Raise Career Awareness in Computing: Lessons Learned
This study aims to provide activities to motivate teachers to use technology in their classrooms and encourage students to pursue a STEM related field, Computer Science in particular.
Expectancy-Value and Children’s Science Achievement: Parents Matter
– Teachers’ expectancy for children’s success in science did not significantly predict students’ fifth grade science achievement.
– Parents’ expectancy did predict students’ fifth grade science achievement.
– Children’s science self-efficacy significantly influenced science achievement scores. This was a weaker influence than the direct effect of parents’ expectancy of children’s success in science.
– None of the dependent variables showed significant difference between genders.
– The influence of parent expectancy on child self-efficacy for science and science achievement is equally strong for both boys and girls.
Growing the Roots of STEM Majors: Female Math and Science High School Faculty and the Participation of Students in STEM
What is the role of the demographics of high school faculty, more specifically the proportion of female math and science teachers, on college students’ decisions to declare and/or major in STEM?
Moving Latino/a Students into STEM Majors in College: The Role of Teachers and Professional Communities in Secondary Schools
This research focuses on the predictors of STEM majors in college, focusing specifically on Latino/a students. Also, it examines the effectiveness of collaborative teaching communities in secondary schools. Lastly, this research focuses on teacher satisfaction and teaching practices on student outcomes.
Classroom-Based Inequalities and Achievement Gaps in the First Grade: The Role of Classroom Context and Access to Qualified and Effective Teachers
1) What are the magnitudes of URM (underrepresented minorities) achievement gaps in reading and math at the beginning of first grade, and to what degree do they change during first grade?
2) Do student inputs vary across classrooms and schools? What are the magnitudes of school based achievement gaps that develop in the first grade? Do URM have equitable access to classrooms with contextual characteristics conducive to learning? Highly qualified teachers and effective teachers?
3) And if not what degree does each contribute to the achievement gaps that accumulate during the first grade?
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?
Is Integration a Dream Deferred? Students of Color in Majority White Suburban Schools
How does students’ relationships with school adults impact their educational experiences and future college and career choices?
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?
Ethnic Matching, School Placement, and Mathematics Achievement of African American Students from Kindergarten Through Fifth Grade
1) Do African American students perform better on mathematics achievement test when taught by an African American teacher? 2) What is the effect of African American teachers on the mathematics outcomes of African American students by gender, school poverty, percentage of minorities in school, and type of community?
Teacher Effects on Minority and Disadvantaged Students' Grade Four Achievement
Examines the differential effects of teachers on female, minority, and low-socioeconomic status (SES) students’ achievement in Grade 4.
Accuracy and Inaccuracy in Teachers' Perceptions of Young Children's Cognitive Abilities: The Role of Child Background and Classroom Context
1. Are teachers more or less accurate in predicting the cognitive skills of students with particular sociodemographic backgrounds? One would expect a certain amount of inaccuracy in teacher perceptions of their students’ skills. But is this error in teacher estimates randomly distributed, or is it systematically related to children’s socio-demographic characteristics?
2. To what extent do teacher characteristics and classroom and school contexts explain teacher perceptual accuracy? For example, are experienced teachers’ better judges of their students’ skills? Are teacher perceptions more accurate in racially, socioeconomically, or academically homogeneous classrooms? In smaller versus larger classrooms? In public versus private schools?
3. How is teacher accuracy influenced by the interplay between student and teacher or classroom characteristics? For instance, are teachers more accurate in estimating the skills of students with whom they share a racial-ethnic back ground? Are teacher assessments of low-SES children less biased in smaller classrooms?
Schools and Inequality: A Multilevel Analysis of Coleman's Equality of Educational Opportunity Data
Reanalysis and reconceptualization of the Coleman report through a 2-level hierarchical linear model.
How Do School Peers Influence Student Educational Outcomes? Theory and Evidence from Economics and Other Social Sciences
Provide a description of a wide range of peer influence theories from psychologists, sociologists, and economists; proposes new theory of group contagion.
A Crisis of Authority in Predominantly Black Schools?
Analyze reports of problem behavior from teachers and administrators and see if they differ from those in integrated and non-Black schools. How does the prevalence of developmental instruction vary across schools with different racial compositions?
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.
ADHD-Related School Compositional Effects: An Exploration
Examines variation in ADHD compositional effects as a function of key school factors on reading achievement, mathematics achievement, and teacher-reported levels of externalizing behavior.
Trust as a Mediator of the Relationships Between Poverty, Racial Composition, and Academic Achievement: Evidence from Michigan's Public Elementary Schools
Test the relationship btw trust and achievement / assess whether links btw academic achievement, SES, racial composition are mediated by trust levels
Student Demographics, Teacher Sorting, and Teacher Quality: Evidence from the End of School Desegregation
Investigate the relationship between changes in student attributes and changes in teacher quality that are not confounded with changes in school or neighborhood characteristics.
Creating Mathematical Futures Through an Equitable Teaching Approach: The Case of Railside School
Gain a better understanding of equitable and successful teaching by analyzing Railside’s success.
School Segregation Under Color-Blind Jurisprudence: The Case of North Carolina
Measure segregation in terms of uneveness in racial enrollment patterns both between schools and within schools.
The Role of Inequality in Teacher Quality
Examining how the exposure of White and Black students to higher quality teachers has changed over fifteen years.
Does Gender Composition of the Classroom Matter? A Comparison of Students' Academic and Social Outcomes in Single-Gender and Coed High School Classrooms
How gender composition affects students’ academic and socio-emotional outcomes?
Peer Effects in North Carolina Public Schools
Estimate the relationship between peer characteristics and student achievement and to infer whether any such relationship is casual in nature.
School Quality and the Black-White Achievement Gap
Impact of school quality on the black-white achievement gap.
The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America
Firsthand accounts of how segregation and apartheid continues in America’s inner city schools and how teachers at those schools persist against the odds.
Does Segregation Still Matter? The Impact of Student Composition on Academic Achievement in High School
Whether racial and socioeconomic segregation is still contributing to the achievement differences among students.
Elementary School Teachers' Perceptions and Attitudes to the Educational Structure of Tracking
Explores teachers’ attitudes and perceptions about tracking in three NY State public schools.
The Color Line in American Education: Race, Resources, and Student Achievement
Outline current disparities in educational access and illustrate relationships among race, educational resources, and student achievement.
Fifty Years after Brown: The Benefits and Tradeoffs for African American Educators and Students
Examines the benefits and tradeoffs for African American professional educators and students that resulted from Brown.
High-Stakes Accountability and Equity: Using Evidence from California's Public Schools Accountability Act to Address the Issues in Williams v. State of California
Analyzes the relationship between the school resources identified in the Williams case -teachers, textbooks, and facilities- and the state’s main measure of school performance.
Unintended Consequences? The Impact of the Brown v. Board of Education Decision on the Employment Status of Black Educators
Impact of Brown on black educators.
The Effect of Schools and Classes on Language Achievement
The effect of schools and classes upon literacy in the second grade of secondary education.
Racial Segregation in Georgia Public Schools 1994-2001: Trends, Causes and Impact on Teacher Quality
Racial Segregation in GA Public Schools.
Classroom Composition and Peer Effects
The extent to which the composition of classes affects learning outcomes.
The Impact of Racial and Ethnic Diversity on Educational Outcomes: Cambridge, MA School District
Impact of racial and ethnic diversity on educational outcomes
Teacher Sorting and the Plight of Urban Schools: A Descriptive Analysis
Determine how much variation in the average attributes of teachers currently exists across schools.
Why Public Schools Lose Teachers?
Why Public Schools Lose Teachers? Understanding of the effects of salary and other school factors on teacher transitions.
Students' Attachment and Academic Engagement: The Role of Race and Ethnicity
Examines relationship between race and school attachment and engagement.
Teacher-Student Interactions and Race in Integrated Classrooms
Are Black and White students treated differently by White teachers on the basis of race in integrated classrooms?
Teachers' Perceptions and Expectations and The Black-White Test Score Gap
Ways in which teachers’ and students’ behaviors might be causes/consequences of racially disparate perceptions and expectations regarding achievement.
Tell Me With Whom You're Learning and I'll Tell You How Much You've Learned: Mixed-Ability Versus Same-Ability Grouping in Mathematics
The effects of teaching mathematics in a mixed-ability setting on student’s achievements and teachers’ attitudes.
Linking Diversity and Educational Purpose: How the Diversity of the Faculty and Student Body May Impact the Classroom Environment and Student Development
Examines the consequences of having a diverse student body and diverse faculty on student outcomes at predominantly white, four year institutions.
High Standards in a Tracked System of Schooling: For Which Students and with What Educational Supports?
Equitable opportunity for all children to learn challenging curricula. Changing limiting beliefs of teacher’s methods.