- Degree of minority concentration has a powerful negative influence on achievement test results and that this influence does not appear to be explained by family SES or individual traits.
- Minority concentration has negative impact over and above individual students’ own race.
- Segregation also negatively influences achievement over and above the school SES and prevailing behaviors and habits in schools.
- Both Whites and Blacks are negatively affected by the degree of minority concentration, with Blacks most seriously affected.
- Time spent on homework, interestingly, appears to have no impact on how well students do on this major achievement test.
- Time spent reading has a significant, but weak, positive influence on scores, and time spent watching television has a significant, but weak negative influence.
- Time spent on organized activities has a moderate positive influence, and time spent working has a slightly stronger influence, which is negative.
- Having a low income, as indicated by free lunch status, does have a fairly strong negative effect on GEE scores (-.120), and including this variable does cause the coefficient of minority status to decrease from -.377 to -.313, but minority race continues to be the most powerful predictor of individual outcomes on the achievement test
- Parental SES is the next strongest predictor of test scores, after race.
- Part of the influence of minority race on test scores does seem to be a result of the fact that minority students attend schools with high minority populations: the coefficient of individual race declines from -.313 to -.255. Still, individual minority race continues to exercise a significant, strong influence on achievement test performance, even when we control for racial composition of schools.
- While the time that individual students spend on homework has a relatively small effect, and a negative one, the average amount of time spent on homework by all students has a fairly strong positive influence.
- Evidence suggests that evidence that the negative influence of minority concentration should not be attributed to the lower parental socioeconomic level of schools.
- Of all the factors considered, percentage of African American students in schools is by far the strongest’ influence on test scores of African American students, and it is a negative influence.