A Race to the Finish: An Analysis of Factors Contributing to the Achievement Gap in Portland Public School District

Closing the achievement gap is one of the most talked about issues within the United States education system. The achievement gap refers to disproportionality in rates of achievement between white students and students of color. The question should not be how one closes the achievement gap but what factors contribute to the achievement gap and how these factors can be addressed. This paper looks at the achievement gap between white and black students on a national level, focusing on research addressing different factors pertaining to the gap. Five main factors contribute to the achievement gap between white and black students: neighborhood segregation, socioeconomic status, parent influence, school discipline and standardized testing. This thesis considers the role of each factor as it pertains to Portland Public School District’s racial achievement gap as evidenced by high school graduation rates, test scores, and dropout rates. Introduction “In the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” These words were spoken 60 years ago by Chief Justice Warren during Brown v. Board of Education. Although white students and students of color are able to attend the same educational facilities, sixty years later education is still not equal. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the national high school graduation rate for 2010 was 78 percent. White students had a graduation rate of 83.0%, while the graduation rate for African American students was 66.1%. The dropout rate for Hispanic and African American students was more than double the national average. This gap in achievement has shown up on the National Assessment of Education Progress and on state and local tests, in rates of graduation, dropping out, suspension, expulsion, and assignment to education (Carter & Welner, 2013). Most studies determine the achievement gap based on national-average test-score differences between racial and ethnic groups based on the NAEP and SAT results (Lee, 2002; Billings, 2006; Reardon et al., 2013). This analysis includes the differences in standardized test scores and the graduation and dropout rates between black and white students in terms of achievement. Researchers have paid attention to many of the different factors that may contribute to the achievement gap. Lee (2002) suggests that socioeconomic and family conditions (educational attainment, income, poverty, single household): youth culture and student behavior (motivation and effort for learning, alcohol and illicit drug use, crime); and schooling conditions and practices (instructional resources, teachers, course taking, dropout, segregation) are some of the factors behind achievement gaps. Billings (2006) suggests that the composition of a school, the students’ sense of control of the environments, the teachers’ skills, and the students’ family background. Not one factor can be attributed to the cause of the achievement gap and in fact most of the factors studied by other researchers are all intertwined with race. My research demonstrates that the main factors are neighborhood segregation, socioeconomic status, parental influence, school discipline/teacher involvement and standardized tests. In the following sections, I describe how the five factors individually affect the achievement gap nationally between black and white students. Neighborhood Segregation Card and Rothstein’s (2006) research provides evidence that the achievement gap between black and white students is higher in more segregated cities. The research suggests that when looking at the scores within a highly segregated city and shifting into an integrated city, the gap narrows. The research also suggested that neighborhood segregation seemed to matter more than school segregation. These researchers consistently found a strong correlation between neighborhood segregation and lower scores, whereas the effects of school segregation were not statistically significant. When considered separately however, both school and neighborhood segregation have negative effects on black achievement, thus adding to the national achievement gap between black and white students. Diamond (2006) takes this a step further by drawing on a case study that reveals how even in integrated suburbs, black and white students take different paths that lead to an educational advantage for white students. Diamond’s article discusses the case of Lakeside school, a large and impressive looking school with a student population of 3,000 students. The student body was made up of 48% White, 40% Black, seven percent Hispanic, and two percent Asian. Although the school had impressive academic accomplishments, there were still had significant racial gaps. According to the school’s data, African American students had lower GPAs, did not perform as well on standardized tests, and were less likely to be enrolled in honors classes. Students of color made up more than 50% of the school population but only 20 students of these students ranked among the top 100 students in 2001 and 75% of the failing grades that year were given to students of color. Lakeside belonged to the Minority Student Achievement Network (MSAN), a national organization of suburban school district focused on addressing racial gaps in achievement. MSAN research showed that 50% of White students belonging to MSAN school districts reported GPAs of A or A-, while only 15% of African American students were in this range. Conversely, 44% of African American students reported a GPA of C+ or lower, while only 14% of Whites reported grades in the below average range. Diamond states that although better than segregated schools, integrated schools have still failed to create equal opportunity for all students. Card and Rothstein’s research and Diamond’s study provides insight that neighborhood segregation does not contribute to the academic achievement alone but is a contributing factor to the gap, producing evidence that although the gap is existent in integrated schools, it appears at a higher rate within segregated cities. Socioeconomic Status Researchers have examined socioeconomic status as a determinate in the achievement gap, however wealth is often not included in conceptualizations of this factor (normally income, educational attainment, and occupational prestige are viewed as the sufficient indicators of the socioeconomic factor. Orr (2003) argues that wealth is not only a determinant of achievement but adds to the test score achievement gap between black and white students. Orr’s theory is that wealth is a form of economic capital that can be “cashed in” for other forms of capital, such as social or cultural). Wealth as an economic capital can allow parents to purchase educational resources for their children such as books, computers, private schooling, and raise their status symbol in school. Research has shown that many black students come from families with lower levels of wealth, meaning these children have less access to financial, human, cultural, and social capital. With lower levels of financial capital, these students have less access to the resources listed above. Having restricted access to these resources provides them with a lower cultural capital, overall lowering their human capital and academic achievement. Because black and white families differ in the amount of wealth and financial capital they possess, wealth can explain the overall achievement gap between black and white students. The socioeconomic status of a student does not start as they enter high school; instead the child’s socioeconomic status can have an effect on the achievement gap before the child even enters the K-12 system. Duncan and Magnuson (2005) produced an article considering whether the SES of families affects the school readiness among preschoolers. The data concluded the average SES of black kindergarteners was more than two-thirds of a standard deviation below that of white students. The study found that on average, black students’ academic skills lag behind their white peers. Due to having higher chances of coming from a low socioeconomic family, black students are more likely not to attend preschool (unless enrolled in a Head Start program). This lack in early childhood education, can lead to students being behind when entering the K-12 education system, thus adding to the achievement gap before even entering school.