In this statement to the Rhode Island State Legislature, Ian Rowe presents a case for education equality. He acknowledges that America is not perfect, but there is a need to confront the inequities faced united rather than divided. In preparing for this testimony, he pulled 8th grade NAEP reading proficiency scores for Rhode Island students since…

The focus of the achievement gap seems to be less about racial and ethnic distinctions and more about disparities in socioeconomic status. Students from affluent and secure backgrounds have a running head start on students mired in poverty. Few young people in the United States live in more challenging conditions than the children of the eastern…

Claudia Buchmann, Dennis Condron and Vincent Roscigno's study, titled "Shadow Education, American Style: Test Preparation, the SAT and College Enrollment," demonstrates that vigorous use of expensive test preparation tools, such as private classes and tutors, significantly boosts scores on standardized exams such as the SAT or ACT. This…

The Editorial Board welcomes comments on articles, reviews, and letters that have appeared in the "Harvard Educational Review." Longer pieces are published in this "Further Comment" section, in full or in part, at the Editors' discretion. Authors of the articles under discussion are invited to respond. In this section, the…

This paper responds to critics of an August 2000 paper that reported the effects of educational vouchers on student test scores in three cities. The report found that: (1) after 2 years, no students other than African Americans seemed to benefit from vouchers; and (2) African Americans in all three cities posted moderately large test score gains…

For many Black and Hispanic students, and especially low-income minority students, attending Montgomery County Public Schools (Rockville, Maryland) in the hope of getting a good education is a risky proposition at best, and may be seriously detrimental to their educational and personal development at the very worst. This conclusion was reached by…

In response to reviewer criticisms, reiterates that the Hispanic community must share the blame for low Hispanic IQ scores and become involved in educational strategy development. Discusses bilingual education as a hindrance to Hispanic students, and the need for improved standardized tests with single norms. Contains 27 references. (Author/SV)

A gap in standardized achievement-test scores among different groups of students has existed since the inception of standardized testing. The gap between white and African-American schoolchildren was the primary impetus behind much of the social policy devoted to desegregating schools in the second half of the past century. Through a combination…

Responds to Dunn's monograph on Hispanic-Anglo differences in IQ scores. Reviews studies of between-group variance in IQ scores for Blacks, Anglos, and Hispanics; concludes that sociocultural factors are major contributors to such variance. Presents an IQ assessment system that develops sociocultural norms via multiple regression. Contains 24…

This brief paper is a response to a reanalysis (Krueger & Zhu, 2003) of a report (Mayer, Peterson, Myers, Tuttle, & Howell, 2002). The response is offered by two of the authors (Myers & Mayer) of the original report. The original report presented an evaluation of the impact of vouchers on students' reading and mathematics achievement…