This study represents an extension of the findings of Kieffer and Thompson (2018) and evaluates potential correlates of state- and district-level achievement gaps in reading and mathematics between monolingual and multilingual students. Using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, this study reported that there were substantial…

Students' level of academic skills at school entry are a strong predictor of later academic success, and focusing on improving these skills during the preschool years has been a priority during the past 10 years. Evidence from two prior nationally representative studies indicated that incoming kindergarteners' math and literacy skills were higher…

National and state assessments show that English language learners (ELs) in elementary and secondary grades score lower in mathematics compared with their matched English proficient peers (EPs). To provide information on strategies for enhancing learning opportunities for ELs in language inclusive classrooms, we analyze the efficacy of…

Using National Assessment of Educational Progress data from 2003 to 2015, this brief describes changes in the reading and mathematics performance of multilingual students--defined as students who report a primary home language or languages other than English. Although all students' scores improved, multilingual students' scores improved two to…

Using the nationally representative High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09), this study documents that rural and small-town students were significantly less likely to enroll in postsecondary STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) degree programs, compared with their suburban peers. This study also shows that schools…

Dynamic measurement modeling (DMM) has been shown to improve the consequential validity of longitudinal mathematics assessment in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K) database. Here, the authors demonstrate the capability of DMM to similarly improve the consequential validity of ECLS-K reading assessment through the…

Researchers have shown that receiving suspensions is associated with negative educational outcomes. However, existing studies fail to control for unobservable differences between those students who received suspensions and those who did not. In this study, I compare achievement for a given student across school quarters with varying types and…

Theory suggests that teachers' implicit racial attitudes affect their students, but large-scale evidence on U.S. teachers' implicit biases and their correlates is lacking. Using nationwide data from Project Implicit, we found that teachers' implicit White/Black biases (as measured by the implicit association test) vary by teacher gender and race.…

Prior research suggests that males outperform females, on average, on multiple-choice items compared to their relative performance on constructed-response items. This paper characterizes the extent to which gender achievement gaps on state accountability tests across the United States are associated with those tests' item formats. Using roughly 8…

Recent shifts in policy and practice have brought an increasingly more academic focus to the early grades, evidenced in rising standards and the now widely accepted notion that kindergarten is the new first grade. These views however are mostly supported by teacher and parent self-reports and not by an analysis of literacy achievement data. We…

Early studies examining seasonal variation in academic achievement inequality generally concluded that socioeconomic test score gaps grew more over the summer than the school year, suggesting schools served as "equalizers." In this study, we analyze seasonal trends in socioeconomic status (SES) and racial/ethnic test score gaps using…

We examine the effect of the expansion of charter schools on socioeconomic segregation in American public education. Using a district-level panel data set from 1998 to 2015, we describe and model changes in within-district segregation of low-income students, proxied by free-lunch eligibility (FLE). We show that the segregation of FLE students from…

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…

Extensive theoretical literature and qualitative evidence nominate learning communities as a promising strategy to improve persistence and success among at-risk populations, such as students who are academically underprepared for college-level coursework. Yet rigorous quantitative evidence on the impacts of these programs is limited. This paper…

This brief leverages the first ever nationally representative data set with a direct assessment of elementary school-aged children's executive function skills to examine racial and socioeconomic gaps in performance. The analysis reveals large gaps in measures of working memory and cognitive flexibility, the two components of executive function…