Strategies for Closing the Gap: Predicting Student Performance in Economically Disadvantaged Schools.

In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act placed even stronger responsibility on states to raise student performance. As a result of these accountability standards, states must now administer standardized tests to "measure adequate yearly progress" of all students. They face costly federal mandates and must submit comprehensive accountability plans. The federal law also focuses on narrowing the achievement gap between races. It requires that states monitor the performance of racial and economic subgroups and undertake corrective action in failing schools (Wong, in Gray and Hanson, 2004, p. 376). Researchers examining student performance consistently find that one of the most important influences on student achievement is socioeconomic status (SES) of students. The more affluent the student's background, the better he or she will perform (Coleman, et. al., 1966; Jencks et. al., 1972). This research, often referred to as "status attainment research," generally concludes that other school and teacher characteristics as well as school policies and spending decisions have minimal consequences for student achievement. Later studies continue to support these conclusions (Hanushek, 1989, 1996). Okpala (2002, p. 907), in one of many studies that examines resource usage in public schools concludes, "Some of the major factors that are theoretically under the control of a school.have little if anything to do with student performance. " These findings give little comfort to educators in economically disadvantaged schools who are facing heavy pressure to improve performance and close the gap between minority and white students. Yet Verstegen and King (1998) claim that a growing body of research is using better databases and more sophisticated methodological strategies to provide evidence that school policies can make a positive difference in student outcomes. They also emphasize that resource patterns that optimize performance in one setting do not necessary work in others. Encouraged by this line of thinking, we investigate factors that may explain the differences in performances in schools that share a common socioeconomic context. That is, are there choices made by policymakers and administrators in economically disadvantaged schools that spark significant improvements in performance in these schools? In this study, we assume the significance of SES or "input" factors in explaining achievement, and we consider the impact of other "process" variables, that is, factors over which schools have some control. Using the Texas Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) data, we examine these variables to determine the elements that can impact success or failure of public school campuses. Our measure of performance is the standardized test given in 2001 to students in Texas public schools, the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). We focus our study on Texas schools that are predominantly populated by students who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. From this pool of poor school campuses we select two groups of very "high-performing" and very "poor-performing" school campuses. The central question of this study is to discover what factors contribute to the success of some and failure of other schools. We do acknowledge that factors that affect student achievement at the primary school level may not necessarily increase performance at the secondary level. Thus our study compares primary and secondary schools. Impact of process variables Although our statistical models include measures for SES (percent of economically disadvantaged students and percent white students), our focus is on process variables. The latter include those variables that school systems more or less control. We categorize these variables into three general areas: 1) school characteristics (school size, student/teacher ratio, and campus expenditures by function and program); 2) teacher characteristics (salary and experience levels); and 3) the global resource measure of per pupil expenditure (PPE). …