1. School Quality and the Black-White Achievement Gap
Eric Hanushek
Steven Rivkin
January 2006 (Revised June 2006)

2. Examine changes in the black/white Math achievement gap from K-8
Use Texas administrative data and ECLS
Describe changes in gap and decompose into within and between school components
Investigate differences by initial position in the achievement distribution and gender
Do initially high achieving blacks suffer the largest drop-off?
Identify contributions of specific school and peer factors to changes in achievement gap
Estimate differences in teacher quality by transition status
Remain in same school
Change school within district
Change district
Exit Texas public school
Control for student fixed effects
Control for school by year fixed effects-within school quality differences
Adjust for maternity exits
Examine quality variation over time

3. Data UTD Texas Schools Project (TSP)
Administrative panel data set
Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS)
NCES survey

4. Possibility of variation in gap changes across distribution
Examine differences by initial achievement
Examine differences by gender
Sources
Actual difference in evolution of knowledge differential
test instrument driven pattern

5. Decomposition into within and between school components
Coefficient on black dummy variable in school fixed effect achievement regression captures student weighted average within school difference
However, it does not capture within school contribution to overall gap because of uneven distribution of blacks and whites among schools

6. Implications of Uneven Distribution
The more uneven the distribution the smaller is the within school contribution given actual differences within schools
Schools contribute more to the within school component the more balanced the distribution and the higher the enrollment

7. Black/White Achievement GapEC LS
TSP K
1st
3rd
5th
8th
Overall
7.9
12.3
18.0
19.4
0.59
0.65
0.70
b/w school
6.2
10.3
15.0
16.8
0.19
0.25
0.28
w/in school
1.8
2.0
3.1
2.6
0.39
0.40
0.42

8. Examine changes across initial achievement distribution
Comparisons of blacks and whites with same initial scores problematic because of measurement error induced regression to the mean
Mean regression tends to raise achievement gap for blacks and whites with same initial scores
Problem more complex than error induced regression to mean

9. Our Approach Classify students according to 3rd grade reading score
Assumes positive correlation between true reading and math achievement and no correlation in test measurement error
Divide 3rd grade reading distribution into 20 intervals of equal length
In TSP, most students in top categories
Problem more complex than error induced regression to mean

10. Patterns of achievement gap changes by initial Achievement
ECLS
Higher growth in early grades
little systematic difference except for top category
Most between schools

11. Patterns of achievement gap changes by initial Achievement
TSP
Higher growth in early grades without strong pattern
Between grades 5 and 8 gap increased only in higher categories
Between school gap declines in each of the bottom 7 categories but did not decline in any of the remaining groups

14. Gender Differences
Tables reveal little systematic pattern by gender in either the ECLS or TSP data
However, low test taking rates for blacks and to a lesser extent whites in ECLS raises concerns, and low test taking rates of black boys in TSP likely conceals academic difficulties

15. Black-White difference in test taking status distribution for boys3 5 8
Has score
-6.8%
-9.7%
-10.3%
No test/Special ed
5.9
8.9
6.8
Off grade sequence
0.4
0.8
2.1

16. Examine contribution of schools
Sizeable between school contribution consistent with important role for schools but not evidence of causal effect due to extensive sorting of families
We focus on 3 factors
Teacher experience; student racial composition; student turnover

17. Empirical approach Use full panel of TSP data for 4 cohorts
Regress achievement in grade g on
Proportions of teachers with 0, 1, and 2 yrs experience;
Proportion of students new to the school; and
Proportion of students who are black
Controls
Fixed effects
Fully interact variables by race

18. Black/White Differences in Texas Elementary School Characteristics
% students black much higher for blacks
28 point mean difference in TSP
Large difference in ECLS
% teachers in 1st or 2nd year much higher for blacks
4 points in TSP; 2 points in ECLS
Student turnover much higher for blacks
4 points in both TSP anc ECLS
Substantial variation in teacher quality as measured by the contribution to student achievement.
Observable characteristics of teachers explain little of the variation in value added to learning
Salary and other factors affect teacher transition probabilities
Limited evidence on the link between salaries and teacher quality

19. Annual effect Cumulative effect Proportion new 0.003 0.0085
Contributions of Teacher and Peer Variables to gap in TSP (exponential depreciation of 0.3 per year)
Annual effect
Cumulative effect
Proportion new
0.003
0.0085
Proportion black
0.012
0.0333
Proportion 0 yrs
0.002
0.005
Proportion 1 yr
0.001
0.0018
total
0.018
0.0486

20. Is there variation by initial achievement in
Do peer and teacher variables explain different pattern by initial achievement?
Is there variation by initial achievement in
Characteristic differences by race?
Little or none
Characteristic effects?
Some evidence of this

21. Policy Implications are complicated
Desegregation limited by legal rulings and may alter relationship between achievement and racial composition
Student turnover difficult to control
Teacher preferences regarding working conditions must be considered in efforts to raise teacher quality