School Quality and the Black-White Achievement Gap Eric Hanushek Steven Rivkin January 2006 (Revised June 2006)

Examine changes in the black/white Math achievement gap from K-8 Use Texas administrative data and ECLS Describe changes in gap and decompose into within and between school components Investigate differences by initial position in the achievement distribution and gender Do initially high achieving blacks suffer the largest drop-off? Identify contributions of specific school and peer factors to changes in achievement gap Estimate differences in teacher quality by transition status Remain in same school Change school within district Change district Exit Texas public school Control for student fixed effects Control for school by year fixed effects-within school quality differences Adjust for maternity exits Examine quality variation over time

Data UTD Texas Schools Project (TSP) Administrative panel data set Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS) NCES survey

Possibility of variation in gap changes across distribution Examine differences by initial achievement Examine differences by gender Sources Actual difference in evolution of knowledge differential test instrument driven pattern

Decomposition into within and between school components Coefficient on black dummy variable in school fixed effect achievement regression captures student weighted average within school difference However, it does not capture within school contribution to overall gap because of uneven distribution of blacks and whites among schools

Implications of Uneven Distribution The more uneven the distribution the smaller is the within school contribution given actual differences within schools Schools contribute more to the within school component the more balanced the distribution and the higher the enrollment

Black/White Achievement Gap EC LS TSP K 1st 3rd 5th 8th Overall 7.9 12.3 18.0 19.4 0.59 0.65 0.70 b/w school 6.2 10.3 15.0 16.8 0.19 0.25 0.28 w/in school 1.8 2.0 3.1 2.6 0.39 0.40 0.42

Examine changes across initial achievement distribution Comparisons of blacks and whites with same initial scores problematic because of measurement error induced regression to the mean Mean regression tends to raise achievement gap for blacks and whites with same initial scores Problem more complex than error induced regression to mean

Our Approach Classify students according to 3rd grade reading score Assumes positive correlation between true reading and math achievement and no correlation in test measurement error Divide 3rd grade reading distribution into 20 intervals of equal length In TSP, most students in top categories Problem more complex than error induced regression to mean

Patterns of achievement gap changes by initial Achievement ECLS Higher growth in early grades little systematic difference except for top category Most between schools

Patterns of achievement gap changes by initial Achievement TSP Higher growth in early grades without strong pattern Between grades 5 and 8 gap increased only in higher categories Between school gap declines in each of the bottom 7 categories but did not decline in any of the remaining groups

Gender Differences Tables reveal little systematic pattern by gender in either the ECLS or TSP data However, low test taking rates for blacks and to a lesser extent whites in ECLS raises concerns, and low test taking rates of black boys in TSP likely conceals academic difficulties

Black-White difference in test taking status distribution for boys 3 5 8 Has score -6.8% -9.7% -10.3% No test/Special ed 5.9 8.9 6.8 Off grade sequence 0.4 0.8 2.1

Examine contribution of schools Sizeable between school contribution consistent with important role for schools but not evidence of causal effect due to extensive sorting of families We focus on 3 factors Teacher experience; student racial composition; student turnover

Empirical approach Use full panel of TSP data for 4 cohorts Regress achievement in grade g on Proportions of teachers with 0, 1, and 2 yrs experience; Proportion of students new to the school; and Proportion of students who are black Controls Fixed effects Fully interact variables by race

Black/White Differences in Texas Elementary School Characteristics % students black much higher for blacks 28 point mean difference in TSP Large difference in ECLS % teachers in 1st or 2nd year much higher for blacks 4 points in TSP; 2 points in ECLS Student turnover much higher for blacks 4 points in both TSP anc ECLS Substantial variation in teacher quality as measured by the contribution to student achievement. Observable characteristics of teachers explain little of the variation in value added to learning Salary and other factors affect teacher transition probabilities Limited evidence on the link between salaries and teacher quality

Annual effect Cumulative effect Proportion new 0.003 0.0085 Contributions of Teacher and Peer Variables to gap in TSP (exponential depreciation of 0.3 per year) Annual effect Cumulative effect Proportion new 0.003 0.0085 Proportion black 0.012 0.0333 Proportion 0 yrs 0.002 0.005 Proportion 1 yr 0.001 0.0018 total 0.018 0.0486

Is there variation by initial achievement in Do peer and teacher variables explain different pattern by initial achievement? Is there variation by initial achievement in Characteristic differences by race? Little or none Characteristic effects? Some evidence of this

Policy Implications are complicated Desegregation limited by legal rulings and may alter relationship between achievement and racial composition Student turnover difficult to control Teacher preferences regarding working conditions must be considered in efforts to raise teacher quality