There is perhaps no more pressing issue in school policy today than the achievement gap across social lines. Achievement differences between well-to-do children and poor children and between disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities and majority whites are large when children first begin school, and they increase over time. Despite years of study…

In trying to understand the origin of gender differences favoring girls in reading skills, analysts have examined mainly the performance of students who are in the same grade, with samples pooled across socioeconomic status (SES). Using a longitudinal sample in Baltimore, where all students in a randomly selected panel are the same age and are…

Assesses occupational status and earnings differentials associated with attending different secondary and postsecondary institutions, with academic experiences, and with allocative mechanisms within schools and colleges. (Author/DB)

This study examines (1) the mechanisms by which socioeconomic background affects curriculum placement, and (2) the effect of curriculum placement on senior high school achievement, goals, and behaviors. (Author/EB)

Used data from a panel of Baltimore students to describe the long-term process of disengagement from school that leads to high school dropout. Nearly half of the study group left school without a degree. There were significant differences across sociodemographic lines involving academic, parental, and personal resources. These resources also added…

Study aimed to understand how home and school factors either facilitate or impede children's adaptation to school by examining longitudinal data on cognitive performance for a large and diverse sample of youngsters over grades one and two in Baltimore City Public Schools. (JRC)

The socioeconomic consequences of qualitative variations in educational experiences are evaluated for a sample of young adult males (N=525) who were first surveyed in 1955 as high school sophomores and followed up in 1970. Models of institutional influence and of within-school processes are developed for both secondary and post-secondary education…

School transfers were traced through the first five years of elementary school for 767 Baltimore (Maryland) children. Data on transfers, grade level progression, special education placements, achievement, family circumstances, and race indicated that school transfers were frequent, and patterned along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines.…

Reexamines family structure's influences on standardized test scores of first- and second-grade children with respect to family resources. Found that two parents in the home and family resources did not affect growth in standardized achievement during school sessions. Family resources did influence achievement when school was out. (RJM)

This paper uses a structural model with a large random sample of urban children to explain children's competence in math concepts and computation at the time they begin first grade. These two aspects of math ability respond differently to environmental resources, with math concepts much more responsive to family factors before formal schooling…