The achievement gap between white and non-white students: a conceptual  (Page 17/19)

Balfanz and Byrnes (2006) investigated high poverty middle schools and the success that was achieved in closing the gap in mathematics. In the study, the researchers examined 23 high-poverty middle schools which did not implement the Whole School Reform (WSR) in the Philadelphia school district and three high-poverty middle schools that did incorporate the WSR program. The three high-poverty schools that implemented the Whole School Reform (WSR) outperformed the 23 high-poverty, minority schools that did not implement WSR (overall gain +3.2 points).

Carpenter, Ramirez, and Severn (2006) examined differences in achievement within ethnic minority groups. The researchers analyzed math achievement data from the National Center for Educational Studies (NCES:88). Over 15,000 Grade 12 students from Hispanic, Black, or White ethnic backgrounds were included in the study. A multiple regression of students resulted in a “stair step of achievement” where White students outperformed Hispanic students who outperformed Black students (p. 117). Carpenter et al. (2006) also concluded that math achievement increased as socio-economic status, parental involvement, and time spent on homework increased within family households.

Researchers have established that students who were limited in language proficiency had greater difficulty in reading achievement (Allington&McGill-Franzen, 2003) than students who were non-LEP. Ready and Tindal (2006) analyzed data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten cohort of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) to determine language status and children’s acquisition of information within a school setting. Students were separated into groups according to the following language criteria: non-language minority, language minority proficient, language minority, non-proficient Asian language minority proficient, and other language minority proficient (White, Black, Native American, and multi-racial) children whose first language was not English. Hispanic language minority proficient students entered kindergarten with an academic disadvantage, with a SD of 0.43 in comparison to non-language minority students and a disadvantage of 0.59 SD in math. Although Hispanic language minority proficient students narrowed the gap in first grade (0.31 SD ), the achievement gap remained. In math the achievement gap narrowed (0.37 SD ) during kindergarten, but stabilized in first grade (0.41 SD ). Ready and Tindall (2006) also examined socio-demographic background in relation to achievement. They concluded that Hispanic language minority proficient and language minority non-proficient students were the most economically disadvantaged of all kindergarten students. Language minority proficient students from Hispanic homes were nearly three times more likely to come from impoverished homes and five times more likely than native speakers to come from low socio-economic homes than other language minority proficient students.

Foster and Miller (2007) examined factors that influence students’ phonics and early comprehension skills from kindergarten through third grade. A total of 12,261 White, Hispanic, Black, and other minority groups were divided into three literacy readiness groups: high, average, and low. Students were placed in groups according to their performance on the literacy assessment. If students scored one standard deviation below the mean, they were placed in the low group. Students who scored one standard deviation above the mean score were placed in the high group. An analysis of variance resulted in statistically significant findings for students who were in the high and average performing groups. Both groups scored the highest in decoding in first grade. The low performing groups did not achieve the same level of performance until third grade. In relation to parent education and income, poverty level was more prevalent in the low performing groups (33%) than high performing groups. The researchers reported 55% of the low performing group had parents who had a high school diploma, compared to 91% of the students in the high performing group. Hispanic and Black students were “overrepresented” in the low performing groups (p. 179).