The effect of socioeconomic status on the student achievement gap in the United States: Race/ethnic disparities

This study investigates the effects of socioeconomic status on racial achievement gaps. The educational achievement gap is based on the study's standardized test scores and grade point averages. And for the empirical analysis, we used a trend analysis and regression approach based on two-way fixed and multilevel mixed-effects regression models. The trend analysis showed that the achievement gap between White and Black students is positive and substantially large, followed by White and Hispanic students. However, the differences in the achievement gap between white and Asian are negative, which shows that student achievement is much higher among Asian students than the White students. Furthermore, the estimated regression models showed that the achievement gap increased significantly as the socioeconomic status between white/black and white/Hispanic students increased. In contrast, the achievement gap significantly decreased as the socioeconomic status gap between white and Asian students changed.