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The Academic Achievement Gap in Grades 3 to 8

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Author Info
Charles T. Clotfelter
Helen F. Ladd
Jacob L. Vigdor

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Abstract

Using data for North Carolina public school students in grades 3 to 8, we examine achievement gaps between white students and students from other racial and ethnic groups. We focus on successive cohorts of students who stay in the state's public schools for all six years, and study both differences in means and in quantiles. Our results on achievement gaps between black and white students are consistent with those from other longitudinal studies: the gaps are sizable, are robust to controls for measures of socioeconomic status, and show no monotonic trend between 3rd and 8th grade. In contrast, both Hispanic and Asian students tend to gain on whites as they progress through these grades. Looking beyond simple mean differences, we find that the racial gaps in math between low-performing students have tended to shrink as students progress through school, while racial gaps between high-performing students have widened for black and American Indian students.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12207.

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Date of creation: May 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12207

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities and Races; Non-labor Discrimination

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Deborah Wilson & Simon Burgess & Adam Briggs, 2005. "The Dynamics of School Attainment of England’s Ethnic Minorities," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 05/130, Department of Economics, University of Bristol, UK. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Alan Krueger & Jesse Rothstein & Sarah Turner, 2005. "Race, Income, and College in 25 Years: The Continuing Legacy of Segregation and Discrimination," NBER Working Papers 11445, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Roland G. Fryer, Jr. & Steven D. Levitt, 2002. "Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School," NBER Working Papers 8975, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2005. "The Black-White Test Score Gap Through Third Grade," NBER Working Papers 11049, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Charles T. Clotfelter & Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2006. "Teacher-Student Matching and the Assessment of Teacher Effectiveness," NBER Working Papers 11936, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Luis Locay & Tracy L. Regan & Arthur M. Diamond, Jr., . "The Effects of Spanish-Language Background on Completed Schooling and Aptitude Test Scores," Working Papers 0710, University of Miami, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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