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The authors find that (1) students’ family and demographic characteristics are the most important
explanatory factors; (2) the distribution of students across schools with differing racial composition,
school sizes, teacher qualifications, and poverty levels also contributes to explaining the gaps; but (3) a substantial portion of each race gap remains unexplained by these compositional differences.
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Higher socioeconomic status is predictive of higher achievement in reading and a lower likelihood of
misbehavior.
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High levels of parental education have a stronger positive effect on reading and deterring misbehavior
among White students than among Black students.
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Free lunch eligibility decreases achievement similarly for all students but increases misbehavior to a greater extent among Whites than among Blacks.
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Their measures of school experience show substantial variation by race. In general, these statuses are less detrimental among Blacks. However, in one exception to this pattern, we find that being old for grade has a much larger negative impact on Black reading achievement than on White reading achievement.
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The percentage of Black teachers in a school is positively associated with reading achievement for Black students, but is negatively associated with reading achievement for White students.
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Racial concentration, as measured by overrepresentation of Black students in the school, decreases achievement as Black students become more overrepresented in the school relative to the district; however, this effect was not significant for misbehavior.
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The parental educational resources of the student body increase achievement and decrease the likelihood of committing an infraction among White but not Black students.