We study a decade of achievement gaps for fifth-, eighth-, and 10th-grade students in Norway using administrative population data. Norway is a wealthy and egalitarian country with a homogeneous educational system, yet achievement gaps between students at the 90th and 10th percentiles of parental income and between students whose parents have at…

Many high schools in the United States are contending with modest student writing achievement and looking for ways to enhance teachers' writing instruction. This is especially the case for schools deemed to be "underperforming" and struggling to reform writing pedagogy against an accumulation of teacher and leadership turnover, limited…

In recent decades, the black-white test score disparity has decreased, and the test score disparity between children of high- versus low-income parents has increased. This study focuses on a comparison that has, to date, fallen between the separate literatures on these diverging trends: black and white students whose parents have similarly low,…

This study examined the influences of teacher support and school environment on 10th graders' mathematics achievements, controlling for socioeconomic status, gender, and mathematics self-efficacy, and the differential influences of these factors for White and Black students in the USA. A sample of 8,682 White and 2,020 Black students who…

The COVID-19 virus brought on a public health emergency that massively disrupted school systems and learning nationwide. During the 2020-2021 school year, many local education agencies (LEAs) in Pennsylvania and other states adopted remote learning to help slow the virus's spread. However, remote learning came with challenges for students,…

As a result of the Every Student Succeeds Act and its requirement that students in foster care be included in education report cards, states have a renewed sense of urgency surrounding accountability for the academic achievement of this vulnerable group of students. This study examined the effects of placement and school stability on students'…

Background: Students living in rural areas of the United States exhibit lower levels of educational attainment than their suburban counterparts. Innovative interventions are needed to close this educational achievement gap. Aims: We investigated whether an online growth mindset intervention could be leveraged to promote academic outcomes. Sample:…

Stereotype threat has been shown to have deleterious impacts on the short- and long-term academic performance and psychological well-being of racial and ethnic minority students. Psychological variables related to this identity threat represent significant sources of achievement and attainment gaps relative to nonstereotyped Asian and white…

Background/Context: There is broad agreement about the benefits of taking AP and/or IB courses in high school. Nonetheless, student access to such courses remains uneven and inequitable, due largely to the practice of tracking students by perceived "ability." These tracking practices are often defended based on the contention that…

This brief examined the patterns of reading achievement using statewide data from all students (Grades 3-10) in multiple years to examine gaps based on student, school, and district characteristics. Results indicate reading achievement varied most between students within schools and that students' prior achievement was the strongest predictor of…

High school graduation is "not yet a reliable indicator of college readiness", (Gaertner & McClarty, 2015, p2). As such, researchers are investigating the use of non-cognitive factors as predictors of college and career readiness (CCR). The College and Career Readiness English Language Arts (ELA) Scale was designed to measure…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on student trust and to examine the relationship between student trust, behavior, and academic outcomes in high school. It asks, first, does trust have a positive effect on high school outcomes? Second, does trust influence student behavior, exerting an indirect effect on…

When Daniel Patrick Moynihan raised the issue of family structure half a century ago, his concern was the increase in black families headed by women. Since then, the share of children raised in single-parent families in the United States has grown across racial and ethnic groups and with it evidence regarding the impact of family structure on…

Current policy goals are designed to ensure all students are college and career ready resulting in a process of curricular intensification which should have significant impact on student coursetaking in high school. However, reforms have been pursued in the context of test-based accountability, which emphasizes assessment metrics as the primary…

In the 2012/13 school year American Indian students accounted for 1.1 percent of K-12 students nationwide and 1.4 percent of K-12 students in North Carolina (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.). Research has identified substantial achievement gaps between American Indian and other students on national tests, in graduation rates, and in…