Money, Race and Success- How Your School District Compares

Money, Race and Success: How Your
School District Compares

By MOTOKO RICH, AMANDA COX and MATTHEW BLOCH APRIL 29, 2016
Sixth graders in the richest school districts are four grade

levels ahead of children in the poorest districts. RELATED
ARTICLE
Educational attainment in each school district in the U.S.
Each circle represents one school district. Larger circles represent districts with more students.
We’ve long known of the persistent and troublesome academic gap between white
students and their black and Hispanic peers in public schools.
We’ve long understood the primary reason, too: A higher proportion of black and
Hispanic children come from poor families. A new analysis of reading and math
test score data from across the country confirms just how much socioeconomic
conditions matter.
Children in the school districts with the highest concentrations of poverty score
an average of more than four grade levels below children in the richest districts.
(Reliable estimates were not available for Asian-Americans.)
Even more sobering, the analysis shows that the largest gaps between white
children and their minority classmates emerge in some of the wealthiest
communities, such as Berkeley, Calif.; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Evanston, Ill.
The study, by Sean F. Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides and Kenneth Shores of

Stanford, also reveals large academic gaps in places like Atlanta, which has a high
level of segregation in the public schools.
There are large gaps between white children and their black
and Hispanic classmates. The gaps are largest in places with
large economic disparities.
Chart shows districts with at least 100 white, 100 black and 100 Hispanic students per grade. Reliable estimates are not
available for Asian-Americans.
Why racial achievement gaps were so pronounced in affluent school districts is a

puzzling question raised by the data. Part of the answer might be that in such
communities, students and parents from wealthier families are constantly
competing for ever more academic success. As parents hire tutors, enroll their
children in robotics classes and push them to solve obscure math problems, those
children keep pulling away from those who can’t afford the enrichment.
“Our high-end students who are coming in are scoring off the charts,” said Jeff
Nash, executive director of community relations for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City
Schools.
The school system is near the flagship campus of the University of North
Carolina, and 30 percent of students in the schools qualify for free and reduced-
price lunch, below the national average.
The wealthier students tend to come from families where, “let’s face it, both the
parents are Ph.D.s, and that kid, no matter what happens in the school, is
pressured from kindergarten to succeed,” Mr. Nash said. “So even though our
minority students are outscoring minority students in other districts near us,
there is still a bigger gap here because of that.”
By contrast, the communities with narrow achievement gaps tend to be those in

which there are very few black or Hispanic children, or places like Detroit or
Buffalo, where all students are so poor that minorities and whites perform
equally badly on standardized tests.
The data was not uniformly grim. A few poor districts — like Bremen City, Ga.
and Union City, N.J. — posted higher-than-average scores. They suggest the
possibility that strong schools could help children from low-income families
succeed.
“There are some outliers, and trying to figure out what’s making them more
successful is worth looking at,” said Mr. Reardon, a professor of education and
lead author of the analysis.
The new analysis surveys data from about 200 million standardized math and
reading tests given to third through eighth graders in every state between 2009
and 2012. Although different states administer different exams, Mr. Reardon and
his team were able to compare the state results with scores on federal tests known
as the National Assessment of Educational Progress in order to develop a
consistent scale by which to compare districts.
Mr. Reardon said the analysis should not be used to rank districts or schools. Test
scores reflect not just the quality of schools or their teachers, but all kinds of
other factors in children’s lives, including their home environment; whether they
attended a good preschool; traumas they have experienced; and whether their
parents read to them at night or hire tutors.
What emerges clearly in the data is the extent to which race and class are
inextricably linked, and how that connection is exacerbated in school settings.
Not only are black and Hispanic children more likely to grow up in poor families,
but middle-class black and Hispanic children are also much more likely than
poor white children to live in neighborhoods and attend schools with high
concentrations of poor students.
These schools can face a myriad of challenges. They tend to have more difficulty
recruiting and keeping the most skilled teachers, and classes are more likely to be
disrupted by violent incidents or the emotional fallout from violence in the
neighborhood. These schools often offer fewer high-level classes such as
Advanced Placement courses, and the parents have fewer resources to raise extra
money that can provide enhanced arts programs and facilities.
“If a school is in a neighborhood that is highly segregated serving students of

color and under-resourced, that is going to have a devastating impact on those
who are experiencing a crisis,” said Thena Robinson Mock, project director of
the Ending the Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track program sponsored by the
Advancement Project, a civil rights group. “But the others who may not be
suffering that crisis at home are also going to suffer from not having enough
resources or high-quality teachers. So it will impact the entire school community
if those factors are at play.”
Even in districts where white students and their minority

classmates had similar socioeconomic backgrounds,
academic gaps persisted.
Here, we're showing only districts where black and white students or Hispanic and white students came from similar
backgrounds.
In some communities where both blacks and whites or Hispanics and whites
came from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, academic gaps persisted. Mr.
Reardon said that educators in these schools may subliminally – or consciously in
some cases – track white students into gifted courses while assigning black and
Hispanic students to less rigorous courses.
Others who examined the data said it raised as many questions as it answered.
“This data is giving us a magnifying glass into places that have the same
socioeconomic gaps but different achievement patterns,” said Rucker C. Johnson,
associate professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “So
we need to use that magnifying glass to figure out what the constellation of other
factors” are that affect academics.
In one school district that appears to have beaten the odds, Union City, N.J.,
students consistently performed about a third of a grade level above the national
average on math and reading tests even though the median family income is just
$37,000 and only 18 percent of parents have a bachelor’s degree. About 95
percent of the students are Hispanic, and the vast majority of students qualify for
free or reduced-price lunches.
Silvia Abbato, the district’s superintendent, said she could not pinpoint any one
action that had led to the better scores. She noted that the district uses federal
funds to help pay for teachers to obtain graduate certifications as literacy
specialists, and it sponsors biweekly parent nights with advice on homework help
for children, nutrition and immigration status.
The district regularly revamps the curriculum and uses quick online tests to
gauge where students need more help or whether teachers need to modify their
approaches.
“It’s not something you can do overnight,” Ms. Abbato said. “We have been taking
incremental steps everywhere.”
If you’d like more deep coverage of race and ethnicity, sign up for our Race/Related
newsletter.
Note: Socioeconomic status captures income, the percentage of parents with a college
degree, the percentage of single parents, poverty, SNAP and unemployment rates. Charter
schools are included in the local school districts where they are located.
Source: “The Geography of Racial/Ethnic Test Score Gaps”, by Sean F. Reardon, Demetra
Kalogrides and Kenneth Shores of Stanford
Correction: May 3, 2016
An earlier version of this article, using information from Stanford, misstated gaps in Menlo
Park, Calif. and Tredyffrin-Easttown, Pa. Charter schools in those areas are located outside
of the district or online, not in those communities.

Money, Race and Success- How Your School District Compares

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Money, Race and Success- How Your School District Compares

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Money, Race and Success- How Your School District Compares

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Money, Race and Success: How Your

School District Compares

Sixth graders in the richest school districts are four grade

The study, by Sean F. Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides and Kenneth Shores of

Why racial achievement gaps were so pronounced in affluent school districts is a

By contrast, the communities with narrow achievement gaps tend to be those in

“If a school is in a neighborhood that is highly segregated serving students of

Even in districts where white students and their minority

Correction: May 3, 2016

You might also like