Steady Gains and Stalled Progress

Inequality and the Black-White Test Score Gap

Publication Year: 2008

Addressing the disparity in test scores between black and white children remains one of the greatest social challenges of our time. Between the 1960s and 1980s, tremendous strides were made in closing the achievement gap, but that remarkable progress halted abruptly in the mid 1980s, and stagnated throughout the 1990s. How can we understand these shifting trends and their relation to escalating economic inequality? In Steady Gains and Stalled Progress, interdisciplinary experts present a groundbreaking analysis of the multifaceted reasons behind the test score gap—and the policies that hold the greatest promise for renewed progress in the future. Steady Gains and Stalled Progress shows that while income inequality does not directly lead to racial differences in test scores, it creates and exacerbates disparities in schools, families, and communities—which do affect test scores. Jens Ludwig and Jacob Vigdor demonstrate that the period of greatest progress in closing the gap coincided with the historic push for school desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s. Stagnation came after efforts to integrate schools slowed down. Today, the test score gap is nearly 50 percent larger in states with the highest levels of school segregation. Katherine Magnuson, Dan Rosenbaum, and Jane Waldfogel show how parents’ level of education affects children’s academic performance: as educational attainment for black parents increased in the 1970s and 1980s, the gap in children’s test scores narrowed. Sean Corcoran and William Evans present evidence that teachers of black students have less experience and are less satisfied in their careers than teachers of white students. David Grissmer and Elizabeth Eiseman find that the effects of economic deprivation on cognitive and emotional development in early childhood lead to a racial divide in school readiness on the very first day of kindergarten. Looking ahead, Helen Ladd stresses that the task of narrowing the divide is not one that can or should be left to schools alone. Progress will resume only when policymakers address the larger social and economic forces behind the problem. Ronald Ferguson masterfully interweaves the volume’s chief findings to highlight the fact that the achievement gap is the cumulative effect of many different processes operating in different contexts. The gap in black and white test scores is one of the most salient features of racial inequality today. Steady Gains and Stalled Progress provides the detailed information and powerful insight we need to understand a complicated past and design a better future.

Published by: Russell Sage Foundation

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A hundred and forty-five years after the Emancipation Proclamation and fifty-five years after Brown v. Board of Education, segregation is no longer the law of the land, and in principle black and white children have the benefit of equal opportunities. Yet, across many dimensions, black Americans do not start life on equal footing with their white neighbors. ...

PART I: A LONG-TERM VIEW

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pp. 31-32

Chapter 1. Inequality and Black-White Achievement Trends in the NAEP

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pp. 33-65

How do recent changes in economic inequality and related social dimensions of inequality relate to trends in black-white test score gaps? In this chapter, we provide new evidence on the question, analyzing the links between inequality and black-white achievement trends for nine-year-olds using the National Assessment of Educational Progress Long-Term Trend data (NAEP-LTT) from 1975 to 2004. ...

Chapter 2. Changes in Families, Schools, and the Test Score Gap

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pp. 66-109

Systematic empirical examination of the effects of changes between and within schools on student achievement has been of theoretical and empirical import for many years. Some researchers raise concerns that worsening family environments and schools have negative consequences for students’ educational outcomes (Christensen 1990; Haveman and Wolfe 1994; Herrnstein and Murray 1994; Murray and Herrnstein 1992; Popenoe 1993; Uhlenberg and Eggebeen 1986). ...

Chapter 3. Income Inequality and Racial Gaps in Test Scores

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pp. 110-136

Income inequality among American families has grown steadily since the 1980s, as has the racial-ethnic income gap (Lichter and Eggebeen 1993). These trends are documented in table 3.1, which shows that the standard deviation of U.S. family income doubled from the 1980 to 2000 decennial censuses, and that the gaps between racial-ethnic groups also rose during this period. ...

PART II: EXPLAINING GAPS AT SCHOOL ENTRY AND DURING SCHOOL

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pp. 137-138

Chapter 4. Can Gaps in the Quality of Early Environments and Noncognitive Skills HelpExplain Persisting Black-White Achievement Gaps?

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pp. 139-180

A large body of research in social science has been directed toward addressing the causes of and solutions to continuing inequality of outcomes between black and white Americans (for recent summaries, see Neckerman 2004; Jencks and Phillips 1998). Historically, this research has created an expectation that such gaps would close over generations in a competitive economy if educational and labor market opportunities were equalized. ...

Chapter 5. Segregation and the Test Score Gap

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pp. 181-211

Disparities in educational outcomes between African Americans and whites declined steadily for most of the twentieth century, but this progress has halted or even reversed in recent years (Neal 2006). Understanding why the black-white test score gap narrowed over time, and why this progress stalled during the 1990s, is critical if we are to design policies capable ...

Chapter 6. The Role of Inequality in Teacher Quality

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pp. 212-249

In January 2002, the federal government enacted No Child Left Behind (NCLB), an aggressive effort to hold schools and state education agencies accountable for “clos[ing] the achievement gap between high- and low-performing children, especially the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students.”¹ After decades of progress, the achievement gap between African American and white children in reading ...

Chapter 7. Culture and Stalled Progress in Narrowing the Black-White Test Score Gap

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pp. 250-286

Between 1971 and the late 1980s, the black-white test score gap narrowed considerably in both reading and math. That progress had subsided by 1990, though it may now have resumed. Many scholars have explored why the gap narrowed—concluding that improvements in African American’s socioeconomic circumstances contributed to the narrowing, and that African American students' ...

PART III: CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

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pp. 287-288

Chapter 8. School Policies and the Test Score Gap

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pp. 289-319

On average, black students in the United States achieve at lower levels than white students do. Recent evidence from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) indicates, for example, that in 2004 the gap between thirteen-year-old black and white students was about 0.6 standard deviation in reading and about 0.8 in math. To be sure, such gaps were far larger in the 1970s, ...

Chapter 9. What We’ve Learned About Stalled Progress in Closing the Black-White Achievement Gap

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pp. 320-344

Overcoming academic, social, and economic disparities between blacks and whites in the United States is an aspiration that dates back to when teaching a black person to read was against the law— an act of civil disobedience. Even then, before the emancipation, some people dared challenge the idea that race should determine a person’s destiny. ...

Index

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pp. 345-355

E-ISBN-13: 9781610443746
Print-ISBN-13: 9780871545671

Page Count: 369
Publication Year: 2008

Steady Gains and Stalled Progress

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

About the Authors

Introduction

PART I: A LONG-TERM VIEW

Chapter 1. Inequality and Black-White Achievement Trends in the NAEP

Chapter 2. Changes in Families, Schools, and the Test Score Gap

Chapter 3. Income Inequality and Racial Gaps in Test Scores

PART II: EXPLAINING GAPS AT SCHOOL ENTRY AND DURING SCHOOL

Chapter 4. Can Gaps in the Quality of Early Environments and Noncognitive Skills HelpExplain Persisting Black-White Achievement Gaps?

Chapter 5. Segregation and the Test Score Gap

Chapter 6. The Role of Inequality in Teacher Quality

Chapter 7. Culture and Stalled Progress in Narrowing the Black-White Test Score Gap

PART III: CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Chapter 8. School Policies and the Test Score Gap

Chapter 9. What We’ve Learned About Stalled Progress in Closing the Black-White Achievement Gap

Index

Research Areas

Subject Headings

Welcome to Project MUSE

Connect with Project MUSE

Cover 1

Cover 2

Cover 3

Steady Gains and Stalled Progress

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

About the Authors

Introduction

PART I: A LONG-TERM VIEW

Chapter 1. Inequality and Black-White Achievement Trends in the NAEP

Chapter 2. Changes in Families, Schools, and the Test Score Gap

Chapter 3. Income Inequality and Racial Gaps in Test Scores

PART II: EXPLAINING GAPS AT SCHOOL ENTRY AND DURING SCHOOL

Chapter 4. Can Gaps in the Quality of Early Environments and Noncognitive Skills HelpExplain Persisting Black-White Achievement Gaps?

Chapter 5. Segregation and the Test Score Gap

Chapter 6. The Role of Inequality in Teacher Quality

Chapter 7. Culture and Stalled Progress in Narrowing the Black-White Test Score Gap

PART III: CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Chapter 8. School Policies and the Test Score Gap

Chapter 9. What We’ve Learned About Stalled Progress in Closing the Black-White Achievement Gap

Index

Research Areas

Recommend

Subject Headings

Related Content

Welcome to Project MUSE

Connect with Project MUSE

Cover 1

Cover 2

Cover 3