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Results suggest that school factors can have an impact on test scores but they cannot close the race gap. The school factors that differentially benefit minorities, without hurting non-minorities, such as class size, have small effects
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The school policies that have a positive influence on minorities’ scores often involve an environment where closer attention is paid to the needs of students.
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Teachers having full credentials has a significant (but small) positive impact on all students’ test scores, but it does not strongly benefit only minorities and thus it is not a likely candidate to decrease the ”race gaps.”
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Average class size and teacher diversity hold some limited promise to help reduce the Hispanic-white test score gap, though the latter is qualified by its negative impact on non-minorities.
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Most school policies do not display redistribution characteristics of benefiting one group while hurting another.
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They find no systematic evidence of school programs benefiting one group while hurting another
group.
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The race gap is vastly reduced for Hispanics, in particular in reading, but not so for African-American students.
2003 - Schools and Educational Outcomes: What Causes the ''Race Gap'' in Student Test Scores?
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They use data from a single school district in southern California—the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD). In 1999-2000, there were approximately 23,400 students in the PUSD, of whom 18,300 took California’s yearly mandatory academic tests.
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The PUSD is racially more diverse than California’s public schools overall but the PUSD and the state have comparable levels of English learners. Socio-economically, the PUSD has a student body that is poorer and more disadvantaged than the statewide student body. In terms of academic performance, this school district lagged California in every grade
.
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DV: Math and reading scores from the Stanford 9
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IV: Grouped into two categories; student-family and school variables.
Student- family variables include; race, English proficiency, legal guardianship.
School variables are categorized into three sections; policies, programs, school demographics. Polices include; class size, percentage of teachers with full credentials, number of computers per student, and percent of minority teachers. Programs include; magnet schools, gifted and talented education, and school vocational programs. School demographics include; percent Hispanic and African American students.