The Effect of Black Peers on Black Test Scores.

Recent studies have used increasingly complex methodologies to estimate the effect of peer characteristics—race, poverty, and ability—on student achievement. A paper by Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin using Texas state testing data has received particularly wide attention because it found a large negative effect of school percent black on black math achievement. This paper replicates the HKR models using state testing data from North and South Carolina and national testing data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. The replications fail to support the Texas results. In most models tested, black peer effects are small and not statistically significant, and in the few instances where effects are significant, they are much weaker than those found in Texas. Moreover, it appears that computational problems in the HKR study led to incorrect estimates for black peer effects. Education Working Paper Archive September 12, 2007 3 3 THE EFFECT OF BLACK PEERS ON BLACK TEST SCORES 1,2 There has been a long-standing debate among social scientists about the effects of school desegregation on the academic achievement of minority students. While desegregation plans have many components involving students, staff, and programs, all of which have potential impacts on learning, the most contentious issue has been whether school or classroom racial composition (or racial diversity) improves achievement. Indeed, the origin of the controversy dates to the original Brown decision, which cited social science evidence showing that psychological harms from segregation might cause black students to do poorly in school. Although most legal scholars reject the notion that Brown relied on the psychological harm thesis, the citations— listed in the famous Footnote 11—sparked extensive research and writing on this question over the past five decades. In fact, the issue is still very much alive in school policy as well as the federal courts. During the 2006-07 term the Supreme Court reviewed two school desegregation cases from Seattle and Louisville where defendant school boards justified their continued reliance on race in student assignment because of educational benefits for minority students (Jefferson County Board of Education, 2006; Seattle School District No.1, 2006). Expert studies and testimony in the Seattle and Louisville cases cited a study of black peer effects by Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin (HKR). Using a massive set of longitudinal test scores from the Texas state testing program, HKR developed special models for panel data and found a sizeable negative effect of school percent black on black achievement. This was surprising, given many prior studies over many years that had found weak relationships at best (St. John, 1975; Cook, 1984; Schofield, 1995; Armor, 2002). As the authors state, however, the Texas state achievement data allowed development and application of sophisticated fixed effect models that cannot be tested on smaller data sets. Accordingly, the impetus for present study is to replicate the HKR model using other longitudinal achievement data to determine whether the large black peer effect found by HKR generalizes beyond the state of Texas. Because of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the Texas data are no longer unique; state accountability systems in education have generated large-scale data bases of test scores in many states, and some states have allowed researchers access to that data. In addition, the Department of Education has developed several longitudinal achievement studies, one of which is the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS). These single-cohort longitudinal studies also allow estimation of HKR-type panel models. 1 Portions of this paper were presented at the Fall APPAM Research Conference in Madison, Wisconsin, November 4, 2006, and also appeared in the Education Working Paper Archives at the University of Arkansas. 2 Special thanks to Brian Bucks for comments on earlier versions of this paper. 3 Several versions of this paper have been circulated. See Hanushek, Eric A. , John F. Kain, and Steven G. Rivkin, “New Evidence about Brown v. Board of Education: The Complex Effects of School Racial Composition on Achievement,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 8741, revised in February 2004. The first version of this paper was published in 2002, and a more recent revision is dated March 2006. We will rely on the 2004 and 2006 versions in this paper Education Working Paper Archive September 12, 2007 4 4 This paper replicates the HKR models using data from two state testing programs, North and South Carolina, both of which have data quite similar to the Texas data. It also tests the HKR model using the ECLS data. Theories of Black Peer Effects Although the main thrust of this paper is empirical, it might be useful to review the major theoretical perspectives behind the study of black peer effects. Three major theories attempt to explain why school segregation, or schools that are predominantly black, have adverse effects on black achievement and, conversely why desegregated schools should improve black academic achievement. The first is self-esteem theory, a second is educational inputs theory, and a third is peer group theory. A fourth theory attempts to explain why school composition should have limited effects on achievement. Self-esteem theory postulates that school segregation creates a “stigma” for black children which affects their self-image and motivation to succeed. This is the theory behind the “psychological harm” thesis in the original Brown v Board of Education decision. This theory was supported by some early social science research, in particular the famous “doll” studies of Kenneth and Mamie Clark (Clark, 1939). However, most research conducted after 1960 found little evidence for the theory, and indeed numerous self-esteem studies found that black children had higher self-esteem than white children and also that black children in segregated schools had higher self-esteem than black children in desegregated schools (Armor, 1995; Schofield, 1995). The second theory is based on educational input-output models drawn from economics. In this case, input-output theory suggests that greater school inputs, such as more funds, higher teacher quality, and reduced class sizes will produce higher outputs in the form of student achievement. During the 1950’s and 60’s, many social scientists and educators believed that school resources were deficient in segregated black schools, thereby explaining the lower achievement of black students. Since desegregation would put black and white children in the same schools, school resources would be more equitable and therefore the achievement gap would diminish. The controversial Coleman Report challenged this assumption, finding that by the mid-1960s school resources were not that different between predominantly black and white schools, and, moreover, that school resources were only weakly related to student achievement (Coleman, et al, 1966). Although the validity of Coleman’s conclusions were upheld in subsequent analyses of his data (Jencks, 1972; Mosteller & Moynihan, 1972), the issue continues to be debated among educational researchers (Hanushek, 1996; Hedges, Laine, & Greenwald 1994; Grissmer & Williamson, 1998; Rothstein, 1995). The current debate is not so much on whether school 4 “To separate [black children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hears and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone. ” Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Education Working Paper Archive September 12, 2007 5 5 resources have an effect on academic achievement, but rather how large the effect is and whether equitable resources alone can solve the problem of low black achievement. Perhaps the most relevant theory for this study is peer group theory itself. Classical peer group theory postulates that schools with a higher proportion of higher achieving middle-class students will determine the teaching standards of schools and classrooms, thereby improving the performance of lower achieving students (Armor, 2006). Although classical peer group theory does not require racial desegregation per se, just the presence of a sufficient number of middle class students, as a practical matter the high correlation between race and socioeconomic status implies that SES integration cannot be accomplished without racial integration. A different type of peer group theory is black oppositional culture (Fordham and Ogbu, 1986). Their argument suggests that black students face significant pressure from their black peers to reject academic success because such success equates to giving up African-American culture and ‘acting white. ’ Therefore, a desegregated school can reduce this negative effect by replacing black peers with white peers. While this theory has been embraced by some educators (e.g., Rothstein 2004), oppositional culture theory has not been supported by several empirical studies (Cook & Ludwig 1998; Ainsworth-Darnell & Downy 1998). The fourth theory explains why desegregated schools or reduction in black peers may not improve black achievement. Family background theory posits that academic achievement is determined primarily by a series of parent characteristics, and therefore school characteristics—whether racial composition or school resources—has minimal impact on black achievement. These family factors, including parent IQ, parent education and income, family structure and size, birth weight and nutrition, and parenting behavior such as cognitive stimulation operate during infancy and explains the school readiness gap, but they continue to operate throughout the early school years and can explain a great deal of the achievement gap between black and white children (Brooks-Gunn, Klebanov, and Duncan, 1995; Arm