- Students in high-poverty schools experience concentrated disadvantage- fewer qualified teachers, higher teacher turnover, less demanding coursework, high dropout rates and lower levels of parental involvement.
- Forcing high-poverty schools to focus on trying to ensure that students pass harms top-performing students.
- The high-poverty school did not offer high-level math and science courses that are needed to feed students into the STEM pipeline.
- The students at the high-poverty school lacked the social capital to be adequately prepared for applying to colleges.
- Guidance counselors at both schools were providing very little assistance in terms of advocating for STEM.