Background: South African learners face the double disadvantage of living in low socioeconomic conditions with access to few resources and attending schools with challenging learning conditions. Mathematics performance reflects such conditions with extreme performance gaps between wealthier and poorer learners. The need for early intervention is…

Background: The Mental Starters Assessment Project (MSAP) seeks to address poor performance in Grade 3 mathematics. The programme focusses on eliminating inefficient counting methods and promoting strategic mathematical skills, including numerical sense, mental calculation and rapid recall skills. Additionally, MSAP supports teachers' professional…

Background: Inequality along racial and economic dimensions is well-documented and widespread in educational contexts. Achievement gaps are observed among children as early as primary school and are especially notable in standardized testing (Fryer & Levitt, 2004; Fryer & Levitt, 2013; Bond & Lang 2013). In response, some observers and…

When school districts move more administrators down to school campuses, do they get better at reducing the income-based achievement gap? Data from Texas public school districts between 1994 and 2010 show that such managerial decentralization is positively associated with income-based achievement gap, explained by the tendency of elite capture in…

This research explores the impact of effective leadership and targeted interventions in closing the achievement gap of disadvantaged pupils in primary schools. Findings suggest that the case study schools use effective school leaders and a range of targeted interventions including early intervention, small group additional teaching, one-to-one…

This dissertation advances the field of education economics by describing the limits of competition between traditional and alternative postsecondary credentials in the United States. The results and conclusions contained in this set of three papers forms a substantive basis for change in policy, research, education provider behavior, and…

In this study, we research the gap in average mathematics learning between the children of private and public schools at two points. We have divided them into two groups on the basis of the type of school they are attending or last attended. We first skim through their various background characteristics at these two points. We then explore these…

Higher education institutions and the actors therein are still grappling with disparities in student outcomes and disparate student experiences. Although diligent efforts have been made, institutions have yet to transform in any substantial way to overcome these issues. Rather than offering new student success practices, the focus of this chapter…

In considering whether to retain the GRE in graduate school admissions, admissions committees often pursue two objectives: (a) performance in graduate school (e.g., admitting individuals who will perform better in classes and research), and (b) diversity/fairness (e.g., equal selection rates between demographic groups). Drawing upon HR research…

The purpose of this study was to determine the changes in children's reading motivation and self-perception through small group reading instruction in Reader's Workshop. The academic achievement gap displays many reading challenges for African American students compared to their peers. The goal of this study was to identify small group readings…

I write as an ethnographer of childhoods and literacies to share a critical methodological lesson I have learned: simply observing children in educational settings will not yield rich understandings of the inequities arising from the interplay of societal constructs of race, class, and gender. Such understandings require ethnographic digs,…

The No Child Left Behind Act, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Race to the Top Initiative increased pressure to support academically below grade level students. Schools with large academically below grade-level students often have large Response to Intervention (RTI) groups. Large group sizes present challenges for high-quality…

Using testing data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools in 49 states (plus D.C.), we investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by race and school poverty. We find that remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps. Math gaps did not widen in areas that remained in-person…

The Postsecondary Data Partnership (PDP) is a service of the National Student Clearinghouse established in 2017 to empower institutions with more comprehensive data, easier analysis, centralized reporting functions, and interactive visualizations. Since its inception, over 500 colleges and universities have participated in the PDP. The 2022 PDP…

As part of the cycle for reporting on the implementation of the Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC), attainment advisors produce reports triannually. This summary report is an overview of the analysis of the progress of all 32 local authorities for the period September to November 2022. The key theme for this reporting period was the Scottish…