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Author	Title	Abstract	Author(s)	Date	Keywords
Beardslee	Adaptation of Preventive Interventions for a Low-Income Culturally Diverse Community	Objective: To describe essential elements in the adaptation of a prevention approach with a high-risk urban sample, chosen to contrast sharply with the primarily middle-class sample in which it had been originally tested. Methods: Key elements of a preventive intervention for families with parental depression were adapted for use in the new context. Results: A sequence of alliance-building events was implemented, involving engagement at three levels – community, caregivers and family. The prevention approach was modified to include: an expanded approach to defining depression; greater flexibility on the part of the clinician; more intensive engagement between clinician and family, with a focus on immediate daily concerns; awareness of cultural issues and responsiveness to the subject\'s experience of violence. Conclusion: Core principles of helping family members to discuss the effects of depression and adversity on family life were affirmed. <br /> <br />	Donna L. Podorefsky, PhD, Marjorie McDonald-Dowdell, R.N., L.I.C.S.W., William R. Beardslee, M.D.	2001	Depression, prevention, cultural diversity, community partnerships	Click to view the paper
Beardslee	A Family-Based Approach to the Prevention of Depressive Symptoms in Children at Risk: Evidence of Parental and Child Change	Objective. Depression in parents is a prevalent and impairing illness that is encountered frequently in medical practice. Children of depressed parents are at risk for psychopathology and other difficulties. A series of recent national reports have recommended the development of prevention efforts targeting children of depressed parents. Yet, to date few controlled prevention studies of depression in children and adolescents have been conducted. In this study, we report the evaluation of two preventive intervention strategies that target children living in homes with depressed parents. Both are public health approaches that were designed to be used by a wide range of practitioners from a variety of disciplines, including pediatricians, internists, school counselors, nurses and mental health practitioners. We adopted a developmental perspective and intervened with families when children were entering the age of highest risk for depression onset (i.e., adolescence).We chose a family-based approach to prevention and sought to reduce risk factors and enhance protective factors for early adolescents by increasing positive interactions between parents and children, and by increasing understanding of the illness for everyone in the family. Our prevention approaches were designed to provide information about mood disorders to parents, to equip parents with the skills they need to communicate information to their children, and to open a dialogue with their children about the effects of parental depression. We hypothesized that participation in these prevention programs would result in parental change in child-related behaviors and attitudes about depression and its impact on the family. In addition, we hypothesized that this parental change would produce change in children’s self-understanding, and in children’s depressive symptomatology. Methodology. We conducted a large scale efficacy trial of two manual-based preventive intervention programs that were designed to be used widely in public health settings. These interventions target the relatively healthy children (ages 8 to 15) of parents with mood disorder. Ninety-three families (88.5% of our initial sample), including 121 children, participated in this study through the fourth assessment point. These families were assigned randomly to either a lecture or a clinician-facilitated intervention. Both interventions were specified in manuals. The lecture condition consisted of two separate meetings delivered in a group format without children present. The clinician-facilitated condition consisted of 6-11 sessions, including separate meetings with parents and children and a family meeting in which the parents led a discussion of the illness and of positive steps that can be taken to promote healthy functioning in the children. In addition, telephone contacts or refresher meetings were conducted at 6 to 9 month intervals. In both conditions, psychoeducational material about mood disorders, risk and resilience was presented and efforts were made to decrease feelings of guilt and blame in children. Parents were helped to build resilience in their children through encouraging their friendships, their success outside of the home, and their understanding of parental illness and of themselves. In addition, in the clinician-facilitated condition efforts were made to link the psychoeducational material presented to the family’s own unique illness experience. To address directly how their lives had changed, all family members in both conditions were assessed for psychopathology and for overall functioning at intake, and for psychopathology, functioning, and response to intervention immediately post-intervention, approximately 1 year post-intervention, and again approximately 2.5 years post-intervention. Results. We examined the outcomes of child understanding and internalizing symptomatology, and a number of predictor variables, using repeated measures analyses with generalized estimating equations. We found that parents in both conditions reported significant change in child-related behaviors and attitudes, and that the amount of change reported increased over time from time 3 to time 4 (÷21 = 18.1, p < .001). Moreover, relative to parents in the lecture program (mean number of changes = 6.3), parents in the clinician-facilitated program reported more change in child-related behaviors and attitudes (mean number of changes = 9.8). Children in both conditions reported increased understanding of parental illness due to participation in our intervention programs. There was a positive association between the amount of change children reported in their understanding of parental illness and the number of changes couples reported in child-related behaviors/attitudes (÷21=37.3, p < .0001) (i.e., parents who had changed the most in response to intervention had children who also changed the most). Finally, internalizing scores for all children decreased with increased time since intervention (÷21=7.3, p=.007). In addition, females had higher internalizing scores than males (÷21=5.3, p = .02). There was no significant effect of group on children’s change in internalizing symptomatology (÷21=0.2, p=.69). Conclusions. We enrolled families with relatively healthy children, administered carefully designed preventive interventions that are manual-based and relatively brief, and found that these programs do have long-standing positive effects in how families problem solve around parental illness. Our results show significant benefits from both interventions. Moreover, changes in parents’ perceptions translated directly into changes in children’s own understanding of parental illness. Parental behavior and attitude changes and their connection to child changes in understanding identify an important mediating variable: family change. By increasing children’s understanding of parental mood disorder, our interventions were found to promote resilience-related qualities in these children at risk. This presentation represents the first and only longitudinal primary prevention study of relatively healthy children at risk for psychopathology due to parental mood disorder and demonstrates a significant reduction in risk factors and increase in protective factors in these families over a long time interval – two and a half years. Our results provide support for a family-based approach to preventive intervention.<br />	William R. Beardslee, MD, Tracy R. Gladstone, PhD, Ellen J. Wright, MA, and Andrew b. Cooper, PhD	2003	Primary prevention, intervention studies, depression, child of impaired parents	Click to view the paper
Bishop	A Neo-Darwinian Rational-Choice Theory of Academic Engagement Norms: The Struggle for Popularity and Normative Hegemony in Secondary Schools		John H. Bishop, Michael M. Bishop	2006	social norms, friendship, rational choice theory, normative hegemony, KIPP schools, external examinations, competition	Click to view the paper
Briggs	Can Expanded Housing and Neighborhood Choice Improve School Outcomes for Low-Income Children?: Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment	Educational failure is one of the most devastating problems associated with ghetto poverty in America, and educational improvement was among the most important effects reported by the Gautreaux housing desegregation. Gautreaux inspired Moving to Opportunity (MTO), a federal experiment in voluntary “assisted mobility.” Yet four to seven years in, the experimental group showed no measurable impacts on school outcomes, and modest differences in school quality, for children whose families had initially moved out of high-poverty public housing and into low-poverty neighborhoods. We use qualitative interviewing and ethnographic fieldwork to find out why. Moving on to poorer neighborhoods and choosing weak schools limited exposure to better ones. Where children did not attend assigned schools, parental choices were typically driven by poor information, an emphasis on safety and order but not academic excellence, and, in some cases, by the desire to make familiar schools an oasis of stability amidst the disruptions of relocation. We outline implications of these findings for policy and practice.	Xavier de Souza Briggs, Kadija S. Ferryman, Susan J. Popkin, María Rendón	June 2006	poverty, Moving to Opportunity(MTO), assisted mobility, high-risk neighborhoods, housing policy, safety, stability	Click to view the paper
Cabrera	Pathways to a Four-Year Degree: Determinants of Transfer and Degree Completion		Alberto F. Cabrera, Kurt R. Burkum, Steven M. La Nasa	2005	college, socioeconomic status, academic preparation, year-to-year persistence, degree completion, transfers	Click to view the paper
Cabrera	Latino Students and the Educational Pipeline Part I. (EPI)		Watson Scott Swail,Alberto F. Cabrera, Chul Lee, Adriane Williams	April 4, 2005	Latino students, postsecondary education, employment outcomes	Click to view the paper
Clotfelter	The Academic Achievement Gap in Grades 3 to 8	Using data for North Carolina public school students in grades 3 to 8, we examine achievement gaps between white students and students from other racial and ethnic groups. We focus on successive cohorts of students who stay in the state’s public schools for all six years, and study both differences in means and in quantiles. Our results on achievement gaps between black and white students are consistent with those from other longitudinal studies: the gaps are sizable, are robust to controls for measures of socioeconomic status, and show no monotonic trend between 3rd and 8th grade. In contrast, both Hispanic and Asian students tend to gain on whites as they progress through these grades. Looking beyond simple mean differences, we find that the racial gaps between low-performing students have tended to shrink as students progress through school, while racial gaps between high-performing students have widened. Racial gaps differ widely across geographic areas within the state; very few of the districts or groups of districts that we examined have managed simultaneously to close the black-white gap and raise the relative test scores of black students.	Charles T. Clotfelter, Helen F. Ladd, Jacob L. Vigdor	April 2006	North Carolina, public schools, black-white gap	Click to view the paper
Diamond	Are We Barking Up the Wrong Tree? Rethinking Oppositional Culture Explanations for the Black/White Achievement Gap	The Black/White achievement gap is a central concern among educational researchers, policy makers, and the general public. One popular explanation for this gap is the oppositional culture argument. For the past 20 years, researchers have attempted to pinpoint the extent to which African American peer groups devalue educational achievement and ridicule their high achieving peers for “acting white” (Fordham and Ogbu 1986). To date, there is no conclusive evidence that such negative peer pressure is prevalent among Black students or unique to their peer groups. At best, we can say that some small segment of the Black student population experiences race-specific negative peer pressure. In light of this research, the author advocates moving beyond traditional cultural explanations for the Black/White achievement gap. Instead, he argues that more attention be given to the structural, institutional, and symbolic disadvantages that shape the racialized educational terrain that Black students navigate.	John B. Diamond	June 2006	oppositional culture argument, acting white, race-based challanges	Click to view the paper
Dickens	Black Americans reduce the racial IQ gap: Evidence from standardization samples	It is often asserted that blacks have made no IQ gains on whites, despite relative environmental gains, and that this adds credibility to the case that the black/white IQ gap has genetic origins. Until recently, there have been no adequate data to measure black IQ trends. We analyze data from nine standardization samples for four major tests of cognitive ability. These suggest that blacks have gained 5 or 6 IQ points on non-Hispanic whites between 1972 and 2002. Gains have been fairly uniform across the entire range of black cognitive ability.	William T. Dickens, James R. Flynn	2006	IQ, black-white gap	Click to view the paper
Duncan	The Role of Family Socioeconomic Resources in the Black-White Test Score Gap Among Young Children	This paper reviews evidence on the family origins of racial differences in young children’s test scores and considers how much of the gap is due to differences in the economic and demographic conditions in which black and white children grow up. Our review of the literature finds that the estimated size of the gaps varies considerably across studies. However, a surprisingly consistent result is that a collection of measures related to family socioeconomic resources appears to account for a little less than half a standard deviation of the black-white test score gap, regardless of the assessments used or the populations studied. We discuss the policy implications of these findings and suggest avenues for future research.	Katherine Magnuson, Greg J. Duncan	2006	socioeconomic status, black-white gap	Click to view the paper
Ferguson	Excellence with Equity	Individuals, families, communities and nations have lifestyles: routine ways of allocating time, effort, attention and resources to activities. In ways that the Union City and Council of Great City Schools examples begin to illustrate, progress in a national movement for excellence with equity will require lifestyle changes in the ways that the nation does schooling. Similarly, for most parents of any racial or social class background, it is not difficult to imagine lifestyle changes likely to raise their children’s achievement (for example, required daily leisure reading, discussions in which children explain their homework answers to parents and appropriate bedtimes, firmly enforced).	Ronald F. Ferguson	October 2005	parenting, community, school reform	Click to view the paper
Ferguson	Cultivating New Routines	Separately as well as in network-based projects, we should expect school districts across the nation to launch a number of important activities over the next few years aimed at narrowing achievement gaps. Research can help by informing, monitoring, documenting and evaluating them. Hopefully, various action-research teams will begin to form in which people from districts come together with professional researchers based on mutual interests and shared commitments. Toward that end, this paper has offered a number of ideas that seem to this author worth considering.	Ronald F. Ferguson	2003	achievement gap, network	Click to view the paper
Ferguson	What Doesn't Meet the Eye	There is much that does not meet the teacher’s eye, but that nonetheless affects how ambitiously and effectively students learn. African American and Hispanic students in MSAN districts have fewer family background advantages on average, compared to whites and Asians. In addition, they have lower grade point averages and report less understanding of their lessons. They have lower homework completion rates than white classmates, but report spending virtually the same amount of time doing homework. Skill gaps and differences in home academic supports, not effort or motivation, appear to be the primary explanations for why they complete less homework and get lower grades than whites. Conversely, part of the reason that Asians complete more homework and get higher grades than other nonwhite groups, is that they devote more time to their studies.	Ronald F. Ferguson	2002	family background, racial disparities, suburban schools	Click to view the paper
Ferguson	Review of Key Findings from the 2006 AGI Annual State-of-the-Research Conference	This paper is a summary of research presented at the 2006 AGI annual conference. The paper was presented at the opening of the conference in June 2007.	Ron Ferguson	June 2007	Achievement Gap	Click to view the paper
Fryer	Testing for Racial Differences in the Mental Ability of Young Children	On tests of intelligence, Blacks systematically score worse than Whites, whereas Asians frequently outperform Whites. Some have argued that genetic differences across races account for the gap. Using a newly available nationally representative data set that includes a test of mental function for children aged eight to twelve months, we find only minor racial differences in test outcomes (0.06 standard deviation units in the raw data) between Blacks and Whites that disappear with the inclusion of a limited set of controls. The only statistically significant racial difference is that Asian children score slightly worse than those of other races. To the extent that there are any genetically-driven racial differences in intelligence, these gaps must either emerge after the age of one, or operate along dimensions not captured by this early test of mental cognition. A calibration exercise demonstrates that the observed patterns in the data can be generated by a model in which there are extremely small mean differences in intelligence across races, but where there are large racial differences in environmental factors that grow in importance as children age.	Roland G. Fryer, Steven D. Levitt	March 2006	racial differences, intelligence, genetics, cognitive ability, test score gaps, IQ, environmental factors	Click to view the paper
Fryer	An Empirical Analysis of 'Acting White'	There is a debate among social scientists regarding the existence of a peer externality<br /> commonly referred to as ‘acting white.’ Using a newly available data set (the National<br /> Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health), which allows one to construct an objective<br /> measure of a student’s popularity, we demonstrate that there are large racial differences in the relationship between popularity and academic achievement; our (albeit narrow)definition of ‘acting white.’ The effect is intensified among high achievers and in schools with more interracial contact, but non-existent among students in predominantly black<br /> schools or private schools. The patterns in the data appear most consistent with a twoaudience<br /> signaling model in which investments in education are thought to be indicative<br /> of an individual’s opportunity costs of peer group loyalty. Other models we consider,<br /> such as self-sabotage among black youth or the presence of an oppositional culture, all<br /> contradict the data in important ways.<br /> “Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t<br /> teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can’t achieve<br /> unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander<br /> that says a black youth with a book is acting white.”<br /> Senator Barack Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address<br />	Roland G. Fryer, Paul Torelli	May 1, 2005	acting white, behavior, peer culture, popularity, socialization, high achievement	Click to view the paper
Gosa	Hip-Hop Folk Theories of Social Mobility Without Formal Education: “Drugs, Basketball, & Hip-Hop”	Despite concerns that hip-hop is having a negative impact on the educational achievement of black youth, little is known about achievement-related messages in this youth culture. To investigate, I employ John Ogbu’s “I-R-S” cultural ecological model of student achievement. Using Ogbu’s “oppositional culture” framework, qualitative content analysis is conducted on a large random sample of hip-hop lyrics (n=3,030). My focus is on what lyrics say about social mobility and education (“Instrumental Beliefs”), appropriate and experienced relationships with schools and other societal institutions (“Relational Beliefs”), and issues of race-gender identity and achievement (“Symbolic Beliefs”).<br /> <br /> In this dissertation chapter, I delve deeper into oppositional instrumental themes in the music by exploring hip-hop’s folk theories of social mobility. I examine what rap lyrics say about “making it” in life, the opportunity structure, definitions of success, role modeling, community and parental influences, and general work norms. I find that hip-hop’s dominant folk theory of mobility holds that black youth have only three viable routes to success: drugs, sports, and hip-hop. This narrow vision of the opportunity structure reinforces claims that education does not lead to success in the adult labor market, and that academic achievement is not necessary for getting ahead in life. I argue that these stories of mobility without formal schooling help normalize and legitimize academic disengagement and anti-school norms. While rap lyrics tend to mock working hard at school or regular 9-to-5 jobs, there is a strong work ethic that encourages success in the three spheres through hard work, dedication, and sacrifice.<br />	Travis L. Gosa, Johns Hopkins University	June 05, 2007	Hip-hop rap music, youth popular culture, Oppositional culture, black student achievement, qualitative content analysis	Click to view the paper
Gosa	Hip-Hop’s Counter-Narrative & Pro-Schooling Messages	The purpose of this chapter is to explore hip-hop’s pro-schooling messages, when and where they can be located in the historical development of hip-hop, and how these voices of dissent challenge aspects of hip-hop’s oppositional “I-R-S” discourse. In doing so, I examine the growing divisions within the hip-hop community(ies). I address increasing concerns that hip-hop is becoming more negative by exploring how achievement-related judgments have changed in the music.<br /> I find that earlier “old school” lyrics appearing before 1994 contain powerful messages about the importance of education and the consequences of dropout. In what I call hip-hop’s pro-schooling parables, these now “old-school” lyrics warn against academic disengagement and leaving school to pursue the street life. While I caution against romanticizing hip-hop before the mid-1990s, I attempt to show how hip-hop’s “gangster turn” has altered the overall tone and achievement-related messages in the music.<br /> In addition to exploring these old school parables, I examine hip-hop’s current countermovement. Armed with autobiographic life lessons, witty insults, hip-hop infused cinema, and logic, these voices of dissent warn about the destructive ideas about achievement and authenticity that are now commonplace in hip-hop. Diverging from pack, these artists warn that eschewing education, selling drugs, and acting like a thug is unwise. Sometimes calling themselves “underground” or “real hip-hop,” these lyricists believe that hip-hop has been hijacked by major label artists and music executives willing to ignore the consequences of selling “lies” to young listeners. Often, these newer artists are teaming up with emcees from the 1980s to reform hip-hop from within. While some high profile artists are vocally opposing the destructive themes in the music, there are reasons to believe that positive messengers are not resonating with black youth.	Travis L. Gosa, Johns Hopkins University	June 05, 2007	Hip-hop rap music, youth popular culture, Oppositional culture, black student achievement, qualitative content analysis, pro-schooling messages in hip-hop rap	Click to view the paper
Gosa	The Construction of Oppositional Culture in Hip-Hop Music: An In-depth Case Analysis of Kanye West and Tupac Shakur	Given the prominent, yet controversial theory of oppositional culture used to explain the poor academic achievement of black youth and recent concerns that hip-hop is leading black youth to adopt anti-school attitudes, we examine the construction of oppositional culture in hip-hop music. Through a qualitative case study of song lyrics (n=250) from two of hip-hop’s most influential artists—“conscious” rapper Kanye West and “gangster” rapper Tupac Shakur, we find oppositional culture in both artists’ lyrics. However, our analysis reveals important differences in how the two artists describe the role of schooling in adult success, relationships with teachers and schools, and how education is related to authentic black male identity. Our findings suggest a need for reexamining the notion that oppositional culture means school resistance.	Travis L. Gosa, Hollie Young, Johns Hopkins University	June 05, 2007	Hip-hop rap music, youth popular culture, Oppositional culture, black student achievement, qualitative content analysis,	Click to view the paper
Grubb	Dynamic Inequality I: Using NELS88 To Analyze Schooling Outcomes Over Time	This paper uses the three years of data in NELS88, from 8th to 10th to 12th grades, to estimate growth functions. The paper begins with an conceptual analysis of dynamic inequality, where initial differences in schooling outcomes are magnified over time — not necessarily in a linear way, but with sudden increases in inequality at particular stages implying non-linear patterns over time. The paper first estimates linear growth functions, relying on the “improved” school finance and its expanded conception of both school and non-school resources. The results, estimated with three-level hierarchical linear models, confirm the divergence of growth trajectories over these 5 years, though including all measures of school and non-school resources sometimes eliminates the divergence (especially among schools). Furthermore, outcomes diverge for different groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and class measures, with (for example) black and Latino students, and those with low parental aspirations, diverging from their peers. Finally, experiments with non-linear (quadratic) growth trajectories reveal that on the average they are concave with respect to years in school, as hypothesized by the model of dynamic inequalities, though the dispersion of growth trajectories around the averages are unexpected. The results also reveal that initial black-white and Latino-white differences in outcomes grow wider over time. However, in some cases the parameters reflecting this divergence are reduced by the effects of school resources and measures of student engagement and motivation. One implication is that a reallocation of the most effective school resources, and efforts to restructure schools to improve the motivation and engagement of students, might eliminate more of the growing racial and ethnic gaps.	W. Norton Grubb	May 2006	dynamic inequality, inequality, school resources, motivation, engagement, life outcomes	Click to view the paper
Grubb	MULTIPLE RESOURCES, MULTIPLE OUTCOMES: TESTING THE “IMPROVED” SCHOOL FINANCE WITH NELS88	This paper develops an expanded approach to educational production functions based on the “improved” school finance, in which school resources are distinguished as simple, compound, complex, and abstract. Using NELS88 data to estimate these production functions for a variety of outcomes, many different types of school resources affect outcomes, prove to be the most powerful explanatory variables.. As expected, non-school resources — certain dimensions of family background, and variables measuring student ability to benefit from instruction — affect outcomes as well. The specific patterns of these results provide a substantial agenda for reforming high schools, particularly in changing curricula, improving instruction and making it more constructivist, and reforming school climate. <br /> <br /> The results also provide a number of insights into the magnitude and causes of racial, ethic, and class-related gaps in schooling outcomes. These gaps are larger for test scores than for measures of progress through schooling, clarifying that the emphasis on test scores has focused on those schooling outcomes that are most difficult to change. In addition, a large proportion of overall gaps in test scores, often half or more, is explained by the various measures of school and non-school resources, so that these gaps are really due to differences in school and non-school resources. And when prior tests scores are included, most gaps vanish completely. The implication is that efforts to close these different gaps must concentrate on those complex school resources that influence outcomes powerfully, as well as to those dimensions of students motivation and engagement that should respond to school reforms.	W. Norton Grubb	June 2006	school resources, school outcomes, family background	Click to view the paper
Hall	Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students are Shortchanged by Teacher Quality	In 2004, with support from the Joyce Foundation, the Education Trust collaborated with three states—Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin—and their three biggest school systems—Cleveland, Chicago, and Milwaukee—to examine the distribution of teacher quality in those states. In partnership with the Education Trust, teams of stakeholders in each jurisdiction colleced data on teacher distribution and identified patterns. In every case, they found large differences between the qualifications of teachers in the highest-poverty and highest-minority schools and teachers serving in schools with few minority and low-income students. The states and districts and the Education Trust then devised strategies to achieve a more fair distribution to ensure equity in access to quality teachers for low-income and minority students. The report includes the data analysis and findings and recommendations.	Heather G. Peske, Kati Haycock	June 2006	teacher quality, low-income students, minority students, teacher qualifications, teacher distribution	Click to view the paper
Harris	High Flying Schools, Student Disadvantage and the Logic of NCLB	The idea that schools can help address students’ social and economic<br /> disadvantages represents an important purpose of universal public education. Some<br /> recent reports as well as federal education policy take this one step further, however, by<br /> implicitly assuming that schools can completely overcome these disadvantages. The<br /> present study considers this argument by re-analyzing the data and interpretations of<br /> recent reports by the Education Trust. There are three main flaws in the reports. First,<br /> their methods make the number of high-poverty schools reaching high-performance—the<br /> “high flyers”—look unrealistically large. The re-analysis here shows that low-poverty<br /> schools are 22-89 times as likely as high-poverty schools to be high-performing on<br /> achievement tests. Second, contrary to interpretations of the reports, this type of analysis<br /> provides little evidence about the role schools play in determining student learning.<br /> Third, the idea that schools can completely overcome student disadvantages ignores a<br /> vast amount of evidence about the strong role the disadvantages play in affecting student<br /> learning. The reports therefore reinforce a false assumption of the federal No Child Left<br /> Behind (NCLB) law. While accountability has the potential to facilitate genuine school<br /> improvement, requiring schools to completely overcome student disadvantages is just as<br /> likely to produce counter-productive responses from educators and therefore hurt the<br /> students they are supposed to help.	Douglas N. Harris	June 2006	disadvantage, inequality, accountabilitly	Click to view the paper
Herman	The Black-White-Other test score gap: academic achievement among mixed race adolescents	This study tests theories of racial differences in achievement among mono-racial and multi-racial high school students. The theories in question (status attainment, oppositional culture, and educational attitudes) were developed to explain achievement differences among mono-racial groups, but this study tests how the theories apply to a multi-racial sample. Results show that ethnic identity and experiences of racism are not strong factors in explaining achievement among multi-racial or mono-racial students. Instead, the school achievement of multi-racial youth is most clearly related to the racial composition of the contexts they live in such as peer group, family, neighborhood, and school. Additional descriptive statistics compare multi-racial groups, showing that multiracial students who self-identify as black or Latino achieve less in school than those who self-identify as white or Asian. The paper proposes a trans-racial theory of achievement that considers the effects of contexts.	Melissa R. Herman	February 2005	multi-racial students, ethnic identity, achievement gaps, racial perceptions	Click to view the paper
Jongewaard	Teachers at Risk: Preparing Effective Teachers for 21st Century Schools	This paper was presented at an Oxford Roundtable series on at-risk students held at Oriel College, Oxford University, March 21-26, 2004. It represents a synthesis of pertinent research and a description of an actual program to train teachers for success with urban learners. I am posting it here for those of you in the AGI group interested in teacher preparation. I welcome your questions and feedback. Teachers At Risk: Preparing Effective Teachers for 21st Century Schools (original Oxford abstract) What essential knowledge, skills and dispositions are required to successfully meet the needs of students in our highly diverse, urban school classrooms? What does research tell us about the critical components of a teacher preparation program designed to prepare teachers for both competence and confidence in such complex educational settings? This session will focus on the characteristics of the urban districts of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota and the program at Hamline University designed to prepare teachers to succeed in those schools. Participants will learn about the urban learner framework used by the Center for Excellence in Urban Teaching at Hamline and our approaches to the operationalization of this theoretical framework. Further, participants will learn about several ongoing research projects designed to measure the efficacy of our efforts. A closing discussion will focus on the universality and transferability of this training model. A working bibliography of resources available in 2004 is attached.	Steven M. Jongewaard Professor of Education Hamline University St. Paul, MN 55104	March 22, 2004	teacher training, at-risk, achievement gap, cultural competence, Urban Learner Framework, teacher effectiveness, school effectiveness, citizenship education, interdependence	Click to view the paper
Kern	Efforts to Narrow the Minority Student Achievement Gap: A Longitudinal Case Study of One School District	This paper is a preliminary study of a school district with 3900 pupils in the state of New Jersey and their efforts to close the persistent minority student achievement gap. The district is in the midst of a leadership transition. The superintendent has been in his position for just one year and four of the five schools have experienced administrator turnovers in the past three years. The district, in partnership with The College of New Jersey and Dr. Ronald Ferguson from Harvard University, has implemented a research-based strategic framework known as the Tripod Project. This project, created by Dr. Ferguson, is an outgrowth of the work of the Minority Student Achievement Network. It is Ferguson's theory that teachers' perceptions, expectations, and behaviors can exacerbate and perhaps even widen the Black-White test score gap. The partnership's overarching goal with the district's teachers and administrators is to enhance school-level capacity to address pedagogy and school and community relationships in order to raise student achievement scores for all students in the district and to close the minority student achievement gap.	Sarah M. Kern	May 2006	test score gaps, accountability, minority students, achievement gap	Click to view the paper
Ladd	High Poverty Schools and the Distribution of Teachers and Principals	Although many factors combine to make a successful school, most people agree that quality teachers and school principals are among the most important requirements for success, especially when success is defined by the ability of the school to raise the achievement of its students. The central question for this study is how the quality of the teachers and principals in high poverty schools in North Carolina compares to that in the schools serving more advantaged students. A related question is why these differences emerge. The consistency of the patterns across many measures of qualifications for both teachers and principals leaves no doubt that students in the high poverty schools are served by school personnel with lower qualifications than those in the lower poverty schools. Moreover, in many cases the differences are large. Additional evidence documents that the differences largely reflect predictable outcomes of the labor market for teachers and principals. Hence, active policy interventions are needed to counter these forces if the ultimate goal is to provide equal educational opportunity.	Charles Clotfelter, Helen Ladd, Jacob Vigdor, and Justin Wheeler	December, 2007. Forthcoming in NC Law Review	Teacher mobility, teacher quality, high poverty schools	Click to view the paper
Liu	INTERSTATE INEQUALITY IN EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY	For the past half century, legal and policy efforts to promote greater equality in educational opportunity have primarily focused on two structural problems. The first—the main preoccupation of school desegregation—is inequality be-tween schools within school districts. The second—the principal target of school finance reform—is inequality between school districts within states. This Article addresses a third and bigger problem that has long been ignored: inequality be-tween states across the nation.	Goodwin Liu	2006	equality, inequality, desegregation, state funding	Click to view the paper
Long	Addressing the Needs of Under-Prepared Students in Higher Education: Does College Remediation Work?	Each year, thousands of students graduate high school academically under-prepared for college. As a result, approximately one-third of entering postsecondary students require remedial or developmental work before being allowed to take college-level courses. However, little is known about the causal impact of remediation on student outcomes, and at an annual cost of over $1 billion at public colleges alone, there is a growing debate about its effectiveness. This project addresses this critical question by examining the effects of math and English remediation using a unique dataset of approximately 28,000 students. To account for selection biases, the paper uses an instrumental variables strategy based on variation in remedial placement policies across institutions and the importance of proximity in college choice. Several tests support the validity of this instrument. The results suggest that students in remediation are more likely to persist in college in comparison to students with similar test scores and backgrounds who were not required to take the courses. They are also less likely to transfer to a lower-level college and more likely to complete a bachelor's degree.	Eric P. Bettinger Bridget Terry Long	April 2008	high school, college, remediation, remedial placement	Click to view the paper
Losen	Tracking Achievement Gaps and Assessing the Impact of NCLB on the Gaps: An In-depth Look into National and State Reading and Math Outcome Trends		Jaekyung Lee	June 2006	NCLB, NAEP, test scores, achievement gap, accountability	Click to view the paper
Mandara	Intergenerational Predictors of the Black-White Achievement Gap in Adolescence	Intergenerational predictors of the Black-White achievement gap among 2108 adolescents from the NLSY were examined. The results showed that the gaps in SES and achievement significantly reduced over the past few generations. Moreover, grandparents' education and occupational prestige accounted for 20% of the achievement gap, but were completely mediated by parent and adolescent factors. Parents' SES, achievement, and parenting accounted for almost all of the remaining ethnic differences in math and reading scores. Parental demandingness and adolescent health and motivation had particularly large unique effects on achievement. It was concluded that adjusting for these differences across generations would, theoretically, all but eliminate the Black-White test score gap. The need for culturally specific parenting interventions was also discussed.	Jelani Mandara, Nereira Greene, Fatima Varner	2006	black-white gap, NLSY, socioeconomic status, family background, parenting, health, motivation	Click to view the paper
Murnane	Understanding Trends in the Black-White Achievement Gap: The Importance of Decomposition Methodology	We revisit the work of Cook and Evans (2000) to examine the decomposition of trends in the black-white achievement gap into trends in within- and between-school differences. Taking advantage of recent improvements in data and advances in scholarship on decomposition methodology, we find that previous research has overstated the extent to which the narrowing of the achievement gap through the 1970s and 1980s can be attributed to the narrowing of within-school differences between black and white students. Further, we find that trends in between-school differences become more important in explaining the widening of the gap that is observed through the 1990s.	Lindsay C. Page, Richard J. Murnane, John B. Willett	March 2008	achievement gap	Click to view the paper
Owens	Performing Well, But Feeling Bad (Nora Broege, Ann Owens, and Barbara Schneider)	This study examines how adolescents' classroom experiences vary by race or ethnicity using data from a subsample of over 800 adolescents from the Sloan Study of Youth and Social Development. Responses to the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), a time diary method in which respondents report their in-the-moment emotional experiences, indicate that a bimodality trend in subjective experiences in the classroom exists: Asian American and White students perform the best yet feel the worst; and Hispanic and African American students perform the worst, yet feel the best. Results suggest that subjective experiences in the classroom are an important but less explored resource in the development of students' academic goals.	Nora Broege, Ann Owens, Barbara Schneider	April 2006	emotion, emotional experience, classroom experience	Click to view the paper
Oyserman	Identity-based motivation and health	Content of important social identities influences beliefs about health, including belief in the efficacy of taking action to promote health. We describe why this happens using our identity-based motivation model. We demonstrate that racial-ethnic minority participants view health promotion behaviors as “White, middle class” and unhealthy behaviors as in-group defining (Studies 1-2) and that priming race-ethnicity (and low SES) increases fatalism about health and reduces access to health knowledge (Studies 3-4). These main effects are moderated by differences in identification of unhealthy behavior as in-group defining and salience of in-group to broader society comparison (Studies 5-7). Perceived efficacy of health promotion is low when unhealthy behavior is identified as in-group defining and similarities to (middle class) Whites are made salient.	Daphna Oyserman, Stephanie Fryberg, Nicholas Yoder	2007	social identity, racial-ethnic identity, motivation	Click to view the paper
Payne	Missing the Inner Intent: The Predictable Failures of Implementation	This chapter describes the continued failure of urban schools to appropriately implement reforms, examines some of the reasons for that and proposes the development of implementation standards as a partial response.	Charles Payne	August 2005	urban schools, reform, implemntation standards	Click to view the paper
Pollock	Toward Everyday Justice: On Demanding Equal Educational Opportunity In the New Civil Rights Era	This Article discusses everyday disputes between ordinary Americans over defining and addressing racial discrimination in education today. These disputes were encountered during the author’s work experience in the Federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights circa 2000. (Note: the author is no longer an employee of OCR and does not represent the agency). This Article contends that in what the author calls “the new civil rights era,” the quest for racially equal educational opportunity takes place in a new social context of resistance to equal opportunity claims. The new civil rights era argument against equal opportunity demands is that racially equal opportunity in the abstract is warranted, but that additional opportunities for people of color in particular instances cannot be provided, are not warranted, or are not wanted for particular reasons. The author contends that to meet the challenge of Grutter in the new civil rights era, advocates for racially equal educational opportunity must consider carefully how best to convince fellow Americans to consider how ordinary, everyday moves in K-12 educational settings provide or deny young people of color equal opportunities to succeed and thrive.	Mica Pollock	2006	discrimination, civil rights, equal opportunity, racially equal educational opportunity	Click to view the paper
Pollock	Everyday Antiracism in Education		Mica Pollock	Anthropology News, Volume 47, No. 2: pp. 9-10. Feb	Racism, antiracism, teachers, professional development	Click to view the paper
Rivkin	School Quality and the Black-White Achievement Gap	Substantial uncertainty exists regarding the impact of school quality on the black/achievement gap. In this paper we use data from both the Texas Schools Project (TSP) panel data and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS) to investigate the contribution of schools to the racial achievement gap in both elementary and middle school. Following a decomposition of changes in the achievement gap into between- and withinschool components, we investigate the effects of specific school variables including teacher experience, student turnover and student racial composition on the black/white differential. One issue that we examine in some detail is the possibility that changes in the racial achievement gap and the effects of specific school characteristics vary by initial achievement and by gender. Our results differ noticeably from the other recent analyses of the black-white achievement gap by providing strong evidence that school quality has a substantial effect on the differential. We find that the majority of the expansion of the achievement gap with age occurs within rather than between schools and the aforementioned school characteristics explains much of the growth in the achievement gap.	Eric A. Hanushek, Steven G. Rivkin	June 2006	school quality, achievement gap, teacher experience, student turnover, Texas Schools Project, ECLS	Click to view the paper
Rothstein	The Many Dimensions of Racial Inequality	Black-white inequality is consistent across the many institutions of American society, reflecting racial differences in education, health, economic security, and civic and cultural life. This report estimates black-white differences in a variety of domains, using several data sets that are informative about these differences. To compare disparate measures, we adopt some very approximate statistical assumptions that permit us to describe the experiences of the average African-American and the average non-Hispanic white in each domain as their percentile rankings in a national distribution. We conclude: * Academic achievement: The average black student is at the 27th percentile in a national distribution of academic achievement, while the average white student is at the 61st percentile. This estimate is based on an average of all reliable subject matter and grade level tests available for elementary and secondary school students. * Pregnancy, Childbirth, Neonatality, and Infancy: The average black mother and newborn child are at the 37th percentile in a national distribution of characteristics at the beginning of life that promote successful outcomes, while the average white mother and newborn child are at the 54th percentile. * Children\'s access to health care: The average black child is at the 43rd percentile in a national distribution of being able to receive, and actually receiving appropriate medical, dental, and optometric treatment, while the average white child is at the 56th percentile. * Health of preschool children: The average black child is at the 41st percentile in a national distribution of children\'s health outcomes up to the age of 5, while the average white child is at the 52nd percentile. * School readiness: The average black child is at the 40th percentile in a national distribution of entering schoolchildren\'s experiences and characteristics that indicate successful preparation for learning, while the average white child is at the 57th percentile. * The non-school hours: The average black schoolchild is at the 46th percentile in a national distribution of children’s out-of-classroom activities that are likely to predispose children for success, while the average white schoolchild is at the 54th percentile. * Health of school-aged children: The average black schoolchild is at the 48th percentile in a national distribution of schoolchildren’s health outcomes, while the average white schoolchild is at the 55th percentile. * Educational attainment: The average black adult is at the 38th percentile in a national distribution of attainment, including years of school completed and degrees earned, while the average white adult is at the 51st percentile. * Economic security. The typical black adult has employment, earnings and income that are at the 41st percentile in a national distribution of these measures, while the typical white adult is at the 54th percentile. * Adult characteristics: The average black adult is at the 41st percentile in a national distribution of participation in productive and fulfilling non-economic activities, including civic participation and cultural life, while the average white adult is at the 55th percentile.	Richard Rothstein, Tamara Wilder	October 24, 2005	inequality, racial differences	Click to view the paper
Sampson	The Tripod Project: Intellectual Engagement Plan (PPT)	If we as a team are on the same plan, and can work as a unit, we can place the responsibility for learning where it belongs: on the student. We believe that well-designed homework assignments relate directly to class work and extend students’ learning beyond the class, and that student achievement correlates to teacher expectations.	Randall G. Sampson	2006	Student engagement and academic achievement	Click to view the paper
Sampson	The Tripod Project:Cultivating An Ambitious And Industrious Love For Learning	This study analyzed a learning community’s quest to collectively cultivate students’ love for learning, scaffold upon the Tripod Project research framework. The Tripod Project is an essential framework for learning communities seeking to foster a stimulating learning culture for ALL students. The Tripod Project is constructed upon the essential concepts of content, pedagogy and relationships.The implementation of Tripod surveys and student-teacher focus groups can foster a robust data driven learning culture, which is focused on establishing a surplus of intellectual capital to be shared between students and teachers; therefore, the Tripod Project is as an important conduit between instructional research and practice when schools centralize the students’ learning experiences as the core foundation for continuous academic improvement.	Randall G. Sampson	June 18, 2007	Student Engagement, Achievement Gap, Tripod Project, Academic Achievement, Instructional Quality	Click to view the paper
Skiba	The Academic Cost of Discipline: The Relationship Between Suspension/Expulsion and School Achievement	Consistent with the disciplinary philosophy of zero tolerance, use of exclusionary discipline is contingent upon a belief that removing certain children from school is necessary or helpful in order to maintain a school climate conducive to learning. Yet, a potentially paradoxical consequence of school removal is the inherent risk of student opportunity to learn, particularly for student groups with relatively high disciplinary rates (e.g. African American students). This study described rates of school discipline and achievement in one Midwestern state disaggregated by race and controlling for poverty, and examined the relationship between school discipline and achievement while accounting for socio-demographic influences. The findings of this study suggest that school usage of suspension and expulsion is negatively related to academic achievement independent of socio-demographic influences, and argues that exclusionary discipline does not contribute to improved learning outcomes.	M. Karega Rausch, Russel J. Skiba	May 1, 2006	discipline, zero tolerance, exclusionary discipline, school removal, suspension, expulsion	Click to view the paper
Smith	A Program to Close the Fourth Grade Literacy Black-White Achievement Gap	Applied Dissertation, Nova Southeastern University, Fischler School of Education and Human Services. The purpose of this study was to narrow the achievement gap between Black and White students on the state English language arts test in Grade 4. The researcher sought to answer 4 questions: (a) Will the intervention result in a 5 percentage point narrowing of the achievement gap? (b) Will working with a coach improve teacher effectiveness? (c) Will professional development, provided by the literacy coach, impact teacher skill in implementation of balanced literacy strategies? (d) Will teachers', coaches', and principals' awareness of the achievement gap affect school policy and instruction? The researcher posed the hypothesis that coaching and implementation of balanced literacy would increase student achievement and therefore narrow the achievement gap. The researcher conducted an action research study from November 2004 to June 2005 at a school that was selected based on the existence of achievement gaps between the Black and White students. The researcher trained the coach and teachers during focus group meetings to look at data, assess student work, and work collaboratively to improve their practice. The researcher used a text and education journal to conduct a study group on the achievement gap with the study participants. The results of the study indicated that coaching and implementation of balanced literacy did not narrow the achievement gap for 4th graders on the state English Language Arts exam by the expected 5 percentage points. The results also indicated that coaching and collaborative practice among teachers did improve teacher effectiveness in meeting students' individual needs and implementation of balanced literacy; and the study group increased awareness of the achievement gap that affected teacher practice and school leadership decisions for program implementation.	Charlene B. Smith	2006	literacy, achievement gap, reading achievement, black achievement, academic achievement, black Students, accountability, reading achievement	Click to view the paper
Snipes	Foundations for Success: Case Studies of How Urban School Systems Improve Student Achievement		Jason Snipes, Fred Doolittle, Corinne Herlihy	September 2002	reform, urban schools, urban school reform	Click to view the paper
Wheeler	Code-switching: Insights and Strategies for Teaching Standard English in Dialectally Diverse Classrooms	When African American students write "I have two sister and two brother," "Dad jeep out of gas," or "My mom deserve a good man," teachers traditionally diagnose “poor English,” finding that the students are “having problems,” or making “errors” with plurality, possession, or verb agreement, etc. In response, the teacher “corrects” the child’s writing, showing them the “right” way to convey these grammatical points. However, research and longstanding student performance have demonstrated that the traditional correction methods fail to teach African American students the requisite Standard English skills. Linguistic research offers an explanation and a solution. When traditional approaches assess student language as “error-filled,” they misdiagnose student writing performance: students using vernacular language ("My goldfish name is Scaley," etc.) are not making errors in Standard English -- they are following the grammar patterns of the home dialect. This paper documents and illustrates how and why traditional English techniques miss-assess African American students' writing performance. It then a) details a linguistically-informed approach to fostering Standard English mastery in African American classrooms -- contrastive analysis (CA) and code-switching (CS), b) identifies key contrasts between the traditional and the code-switching classroom and c) includes a transcript of one urban educator using contrastive analysis to teach Standard English possessive forms. The paper then sketches a range of scenarios, suggesting how code-switching positively transforms the dialectally diverse classroom. It concludes by reporting NCLB results from a code-switching classroom. An appendix of “graphic organizers” and lesson plans for code-switching is included.	Rebecca S. Wheeler	2000-2007	Code-switching, literacy, black-white gap, minority students, low-income students, African American English, urban schools, instructional improvement	Click to view the paper
Williams	Beating the Odds VI	The Council of the Great City Schools has prepared this sixth edition of “Beating the Odds” (Beating the Odds VI) to give the nation another look at how inner-city schools are performing on the academic goals and standards set by the states. This analysis examines student achievement in math and reading through spring 2005. It also measures achievement gaps between cities and states, African Americans and Whites, and Hispanics and Whites. It includes new data on language profi ciency, disability, and income. And it looks at both state test results and National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) data. Finally, the report looks at progress. It asks two critical questions: “Are urban schools improving academically?” and “Are urban schools closing achievement gaps?”.	Michael Casserly, Amanda Petteruti, Adriane Williams	March 2006	urban schools, inner-city schools, achievement gaps	Click to view the paper