Harvard researcher, colleagues: Student achievement gap unchanged in nearly 50 years

Monday, March 18, 2019 - 16:30 in Psychology & Sociology

The achievement gap between disadvantaged and well-off students is as wide today as it was for children born in 1954 when it comes to tests in math, reading, and science, researchers report in a new article for the journal Education Next. However, the study contradicts research suggesting that socioeconomic achievement gaps have substantially widened in recent years. “After looking at a comprehensive, systematic set of student assessments, we are unable to confirm earlier, more limited research that purports to show income-achievement differences have grown dramatically,” said the journal’s senior editor, Paul E. Peterson, a professor of government at Harvard, director of the University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. The authors used a representative sample of student performance data on four national assessments — designed to be comparable over time — administered to students born between 1954 and 2001: both the long-term trend and main...

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