– Results showed a weak, positive relationship between proportions of Hispanic, African American, and Caucasian students passing AP exams and the proportion of AP students enrolled.
– There was a strong, positive relationship amongst the proportions of African-American, Hispanic, and
Caucasian students who passed the exam.
– A weak, negative relationship was found between the proportions of students who were enrolled in AP classes and those who received free or reduced lunch (school SES).
– There was also a negative relationship between Hispanic, African American, and Caucasian students passing the AP exam and the percentage of the school’s population enrolled in free or reduced lunch (school SES).
– The focus on AP enrollment rates for minority students has led to increased rates of minorities
successfully completing advanced coursework, but there is still a need for similar focus on high poverty schools.
Current Selections
ClearAcademic Performance of African American High School Students Related to Socioeconomic Status and School Size
– There was a negative correlation between school level SES and reading at -.50, -.44 for mathematics, and -.35 for science performance.
– There was a positive correlation between school size and reading at .10, .01 for mathematics, and .07 for science performance.
– School level SES and school size had significant impact on school
performance in reading.
– School level SES had significant impact on school performance in mathematics.
– School level SES and school size had significant impact on school performance in science.
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?
Does it Matter Who Your Schoolmates Are? An Investigation of the Association between School Composition, School Processes and Mathematics Achievement in the Early Years of Primary Education
(1) What are the effects of school composition with regard to prior math achievement, SES, ethnicity and sex on mathematics achievement at the end of the second grade? (2) Are there differential school composition effects? In other words: are all students affected equally by their school composition or are some specific subgroups more sensitive to their school composition than others? (3) Do certain school processes mediate the association between school composition and mathematics achievement at the end of the second grade?
The Effects of Single-Sex Compared With Coeducational Schooling on Mathematics and Science Achievement: Data From Korea
– Results for eighth graders indicated no differences between students in single-sex and coeducational schools in mathematics and science achievement.
– Results from the 2003 TIMSS data replicated the finding: students’ mathematics and science achievement was unrelated to the gender composition of their school.
– For both the 2007 and the 2003 data sets, students’ performance was consistently significantly predicted by factors related to socioeconomic status; students (both boys and girls) performed better on the mathematics and science exams when their fathers had more education, their families had more resources, and a lower proportion of their schoolmates came from economically disadvantaged families.
– Both boys’ and girls’ mathematics performance was predicted by the amount of time spent on homework; students do worse when they spend relatively more time on mathematics homework (or students spend more time on homework when they are performing poorly).
Race and Academic Achievement in Racially Diverse High Schools
The authors investigate whether racially diverse high schools offer equality of educational opportunity to students from different racial and ethnic groups. This is examined by measuring the relative representation of minority students in advanced math classes at the beginning of high school and estimating whether and how this opportunity structure limits the level of achievement attained by African American and Latino students by the end of high school.
School Composition and Contextual Effects on Student Outcomes
Examine the relationships among school composition, several aspects of school and classroom context, and students’ literacy skills in science.