- Student characteristics are strongly related to achievement.
- Stratification of schools and schooling contributes to the association between student socioeconomic status and achievement.
- Suggests that the effects of individual SES may be artificially magnified when relevant contextual conditions are neglected.
- Weak and inconsistent effects of opportunities at school level.
- Effects of within-school differences in learning opportunities on achievement are substantial in all six subjects.
- The academic-track advantage is largest in math achievement.
- Apparently, students who enter the academic track after their sophomore year can close the coursework gap with students who had been there all along. But they do not catch up entirely.
- Few school-level conditions that contribute to achievement.
- Most of the significant within-school differences are tied to differential course taking.
- Tracking and coursetracking together account for substantively significant differences in student achievement.