Background/Context: Closing achievement gaps is a major concern in U.S. education. These gaps can develop in a wide range of ways over the course of a student's schooling. Yet, research on school effectiveness and accountability policies for schools often focuses on rank orderings of schools based on value-added models, which could mask those…

States have invested heavily in improving early childhood education in hopes of improving student reading and math skills before they enter kindergarten. However, there is limited national data from later than 2010 on children's skills in these areas at kindergarten entry, so it is difficult for educators and policy makers to ascertain whether…

Background/Context: Increasing evidence suggests a connection between racial differences in rates of exclusionary discipline (suspensions/expulsions) and academic achievement by (Losen & Martinez, 2020; Reardon et al., 2018). Black students receive out-of-school suspensions and expulsions at disproportionately higher rates, which is associated…

Nearly one in five U.S. students attends a rural school, yet we know very little about achievement gaps and academic growth in rural schools. This study leverages a unique dataset that includes longitudinal test scores for more than five million 3rd to 8th grade students in approximately 17,000 public schools across the 50 states, including…

Ethnoracial inequality in educational achievement and attainment is a long-standing feature of the American education system. For example, national reading assessments show that White fourth graders scored nearly a standard deviation higher than Black or Hispanic students on average in 2015 (NCES, 2015). The measurement and analysis of differences…

We draw on novel district-level test score data to describe novel approaches for measuring ethnoracial achievement gaps and assessing trends toward achievement equity from 2009 to 2016. Using SEDA data, we estimate gap trends for each grade over time in each district. We measure trends in both within-district gaps--comparing Black or Hispanic to…

Despite considerable reform activity surrounding K-12 education over the past 20 years, racial and socioeconomic disparities among students who achieve at advanced levels have received little attention. This study examined how excellence gaps, defined as differences in performance at the 90th percentile of subgroups, change over time and their…

Using testing data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools in 49 states (plus D.C.), we investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by race and school poverty. We find that remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps. Math gaps did not widen in areas that remained in-person…

This mixed-methods explanatory study focused on analyzing the impact that National School Lunch Program eligibility had on (a) scholastic performance; (b) Appraisal of the Academic Influences Inventory results; and (c) the rates of absenteeism, tardiness, and disciplinary referrals within large groups of American Indian and White students in…

Evaluators report effects of education initiatives as standardized effect sizes, a scale that has merits but obscures interpretation of the effects' practical importance. Consequently, educators and policymakers seek more readily interpretable translations of evaluation results. One popular metric is the number of years of learning necessary to…