School Context: Achievement Outcomes H607: Ethnicity, Context, and Family Dynamics

The Program/Policy Team Project  Create a team of 3 people  Develop a small theory  Design a program/policy  minute presentation (11/30 or 12/2: 10AM Start)  Jointly written paper  Team member evaluations

The “Haves” Gain More: Iatrogenic Effect?  How do you envision closing gaps in achievement? –Increasing lower scoring students at faster rate? –Increasing higher scoring students at a slower rate?  Interventions can increase gaps in achievement –Performance based benefits –Utilization based benefits  Universalization of targeted programs  Should we attempt to offset these potential differential effects?

School Context Section…  Achievement outcomes  Family-School Relations  Peer Relations

The Plan!  Demographic Variations in achievement –What are they ?  Why do they persist?

Do you value equal opportunity?  Do you believe in equal potential?  To what extent is equal opportunity and/or potential an American value?  Do American public schools value equal opportunity and/or potential?  Should we?  What is the evidence?

Achievement: Race & Ethnic Variations  Asian-Americans –94% complete HS by age 24; 86% go directly to college –For every 100 kindergarteners, 51 will earn a Bachelors –Southeast Asian Immigrants perform less well than Northeast Asians  Euro-Americans –71% are at grade level in 4 th grade –90% graduate from HS by age 24; 76% go directly to college –For every 100 kindergarteners, 28 will earn a bachelors  African Americans –31% at grade level in 4 th grade; The gap increases across grade levels –81% complete high school by age 24; 71% go directly to college –For every 100 kindergarteners, 16 will earn a bachelors  Latinos –14% of 4 th graders are reading at proficient levels; 57% are below basic levels –64% complete high school by age 24; 71% go directly to college –For every 100 kindergarteners, 10 will earn a bachelors –Performance is lower, on average, across generations in the US.

Gaps in Achievement  SES Gaps –Low SES kids are …  on average at least 1 standard Deviation below others  Twice as likely to be referred to special education  3 times as likely to be retained  Gender Gaps –Girls  Girls are less likely to enroll in advanced math classes  Perform less well on math standardized test scores. –Boys  More likely to drop out  Now! Less likely to graduate at top of the class

WHY??  Stereotypes –Stereotype Threat –“Acting White” –Model Minorities  Differences in school quality across SES and ethnicity  Summer Setback –It’s not the schools’ fault! (read…it’s the family’s fault)  Teacher Perceptions –It’s the school’s fault!!  Family Dynamics –It’s really the parents’ fault!

McArdle, N., Osypuk, T. & Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2010). Diversitydata.org School Context

Summer Setback  Total Gains in Academic Year  Reading Lomidhi  Math Lomidhi  Total Summer Gains  Reading Lomidhi  Math Lomidhi

Summer Setback  Policy Solutions?

Teacher Perceptions  Impact student beliefs & work habits  For African American children, teachers often overrate behavior problems and underrate positive or prosocial behaviors –Even in the interpretation of behaviors –Race of teacher doesn’t matter  Ethnic differences in agreement… –Teachers and Euro-American parents agree more than teachers and African American parents … differential agreement has implications for referrals to services, parent- teacher collaborations, and future success.

Ethnic Mean Differences for Teachers and Mothers Kindergarten4 th Grade ADHD Symptoms Kindergarten4 th Grade Prosocial Behavior * * * * Hill, N. E. & Bromell, L. (2006). Ethnic and SES differences in the corroboration of teachers’ and parents’ reports of child behavior across elementary school. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Boston, MA.

Correlations across Reporters Ethnic Differences Kindergarten TeacherMothers ADHDProsocialADHDProsocial T-ADHD1 -.70***.29*-.19 T-Prosocial-.45* 1.35*.27† M-ADHD.52*** *** M-Prosocial-.51***.50***-.151 __________________________________________________________________ 4 th Grade T-ADHD1-.78*** T-Prosocial-.52**1-.36*.33† M-ADHD.54*** *** M-Prosocial-.35* †1 ___________________________________________________________________ nb: Blacks above the diagonal; Whites below the diagonal

Teacher Perceptions: Asians & Latinos  Differential expectations –hold the highest expectations for Asians –hold lowest expectations for Latinos  Differential interactions –More positive interactions (e.g., encouragement; positive referrals) for Whites & Asians –More negative interactions for Latinos and African- Americans  Teachers’ favoritism/bias related to achievement outcomes Tennenbaum & Ruck (2007)

WHY??  Stereotypes – Stereotype Threat –“Acting White” –Model Minorities  Differences in school quality across SES and ethnicity  Summer Setback –It’s not the schools’ fault! ( read…it’s the family’s fault)  Teacher Perceptions –It’s the school’s fault!!  Family Dynamics –It’s really the parents’ fault!

Family Dynamics  It has to be the parents…  Parental value for education  Parental provision of intellectually stimulating home environment  Parental engagement in ways to foster achievement  Parents undermine teachers’ authority  Do parents really understand the “school culture” or school “process” –Differences create synergies of advantages or disadvantages  There is a lot of blame to go around  How might we intervene? What are the targets of intervention and their implications?  If schools/teachers and families are implicated in children not reaching their potential, why not work together???

Coming next  Families and Schools—can they really collaborate? –Parental involvement in education and family- school relations