Study: Most School Districts Have Achievement Gaps

May 10, 2016

By Sarah D. Sparks

In education, a rising tide of resources does not necessarily lift all boats.

Racial achievement gaps exist in nearly every community across the country with a measurable black or Hispanic population—and many districts with a traditional commitment to education and resources to serve all students instead have the worst inequities, according to new research comparing achievement gaps across state lines.

"I think we like to think, 'Here we have this problem, but it's fixable. We know we could figure it out.' It's not clear we've figured it out," said Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford. "There's some deep ... problems that we as a society haven't faced up to yet."

The Stanford researchers and Harvard University education professor Andrew Ho linked scale scores for state tests to the scales for the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the same grades and subjects, and used that yardstick to compare average achievement gap trends for students in 3rd through 8th grades in more than 12,000 districts across the country, from 2009-2013.

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