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Have Income-Based Achievement Gaps Widened or Narrowed?

Author

Listed:
  • Shirin A. Hashim
  • Thomas J. Kane
  • Thomas Kelley-Kemple
  • Mary E. Laski
  • Douglas O. Staiger

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, rising income inequality and income-based residential segregation have threatened to widen income-based achievement gaps. Yet, there are no national data which combine a consistent measure of parental income and achievement for individual students to measure those gaps over time. We take two alternative approaches to inferring income-based achievement gaps: First, we reconstruct the student-level relationship using school-level estimates of means and variances of achievement and income. Second, we combine estimates of mean income by race, mother’s education, urbanicity and state with mean achievement for the corresponding subgroups on a national assessment. Using both methods, we find that income-based achievement gaps in 4th and 8th grade narrowed between 1992 and 2015—while math scores rose at all income levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Shirin A. Hashim & Thomas J. Kane & Thomas Kelley-Kemple & Mary E. Laski & Douglas O. Staiger, 2020. "Have Income-Based Achievement Gaps Widened or Narrowed?," NBER Working Papers 27714, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27714
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    5. Eric R. Nielsen, 2015. "The Income-Achievement Gap and Adult Outcome Inequality," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-41, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Julien Lafortune & Jesse Rothstein & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2018. "School Finance Reform and the Distribution of Student Achievement," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 1-26, April.
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    1. Hill, Darryl V. & Hughes, Rodney P. & Lenard, Matthew A. & Liebowitz, David D. & Page, Lindsay C., 2023. "New schools and new classmates: The disruption and peer group effects of school reassignment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    2. Maria N Wodarz & Natalia L Komarova & Timmy Ma, 2025. "The functional form of the association between K-12 student performance and household income in U.S. school districts," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 20(9), pages 1-16, September.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

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