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Excited to share our working paper out today from me, @marissaelena94, @ctownley_flores, and @seanfreardon called “Uneven Progress: Recent Trends in Academic Performance.” In it, we describe the wide variation in district-level trends in test scores over the 2009-18 period. 1/n
We find that overall, students have improved a little, but that varies a lot—the top 1/6 of districts have improved almost 3/4 of a grade level or more since 2009, and the least-improved 1/6 have declined by 2/3 of a grade level or more. 2/n
We also consider trends in achievement gaps, broadly finding that the nonpoor-poor gap has widened slightly, the white-Black gap has stagnated, and the white-Hispanic gap has somewhat narrowed. Overall achievement trends + equity aren’t strongly correlated; not much synergy. 3/n
We also look specifically at the 20 largest districts by enrollment to see the variation across these places. We find that in some places, like Dallas ISD, white-Black disparities are rapidly widening while SES disparities are rapidly narrowing. 4/n
In other places, like Prince George’s County, white-Black disparities are rapidly narrowing—but even at this rate, it would take until 2070 to close it. & only about half of the largest districts are even narrowing their achievement disparity; in many, it’s rapidly widening. 5/n
For more on districts’ white-Black disparity trends from 2009-18, check out our discovery! 6/n https://edopportunity.org/discoveries/racial-inequality-predicts-academic-inequality/
We also consider how much different predictors, including demographics and school characteristics, can explain achievement trends. The punchline: we can’t explain much; demographics only account for about 7% of the variation in trends, and all predictors only account for 11%. 7/n
We can’t explain much about achievement disparities, either, but a few predictors had consistent patterns across disparities: differences in SES (for diff racial/ethnic groups) and exposure to poor classmates (a measure of segregation; for SES and racial/ethnic disparities). 8/n
For more on how segregation (measured as differences in exposure to poor classmates) predicts changing achievement disparities, see our discovery! 9/n https://edopportunity.org/discoveries/segregation-leads-to-inequality/
We close by calling for case studies of outlier districts for whom opportunity has been growing (and growing more rapidly) for all students and specifically for historically underserved students. Read the full paper here: 10/fin
https://edopportunity.org/papers/seda%20district%20trends%20paper.pdf
https://edopportunity.org/papers/seda%20district%20trends%20paper.pdf
