This article addresses the issue of standardized test performance gaps, and academic achievement gaps more generally, between White and minority students. While many explanatory frameworks can be applied to this issue, this article specifically examines the issue from the perspective of social psychology, which examines how individual psychology is affected by social interactions and groups. This article reviews now classic research on attributional ambiguity as well as stereotype and identity threat as potential precursors to academic disengagement, disidentification, and disenfranchisement. Overall, this research suggests that academic performance and achievement are as much influenced by cognitive processes as they are by relational processes, and that concerns about discrimination and being the target of prejudice serve to undermine students’ performance. Newer assessment tools that do not rely on biased assessments are presented and discussed.