A new report from the  released this week studied the influence of socioeconomic status (SES) on disparities in reading, mathematics, and science achievement among racial and ethnic groups of elementary students in the United States.

Among other things, the study looked at which SES factors best explain existing achievement gaps, along with disparities among high-achieving students. The authors analyzed two sets of data from the federal Early Child Longitudinal Study, from 1998-99 and 2010-11.

The study’s resulting analysis “a broad set of family SES factors explains a substantial portion of racial achievement gaps: between 34 and 64 percent of the Black-white gap and between 51 and 77 percent of the Hispanic-white gap, depending on the subject and grade level.”

“Racial achievement gaps in schools are well documented and remain a significant cause of concern in education. Troubling too is that the role of socioeconomic disparities in mediating these gaps remains unresolved,” the “While SES accounts for much of the racial achievement disparities, closing these gaps requires a comprehensive approach, including improving school quality and supporting family stability.”

The institute’s study used a broad set of measures of family background, including parents’ education, family finances, household structure, and “household opportunity factors.” The latter measure refers to academic, enrichment, and familial activities.

The authors of the study, University of Albany’s Eric Hengyu Hu and Paul L. Morgan, identified the following key findings from their analysis:

• Racial achievement gaps decrease significantly when controlling for the SES factors (though SES explains more of the Hispanic-white gap than the Black-white gap).
• Of all the SES factors analyzed, household income best explains the Black-white gap in academic achievement and mother鈥檚 education best explains the Hispanic-white gap.
• SES indicators, and the extent to which they explain racial/ethnic achievement gaps, are stable over time (1998-99 and 2010-11).
• SES also helps explain racial and ethnic excellence gaps (differences in the proportions of student groups within the highest achievement levels). The SES factors explain a larger share of Hispanic-white excellence gaps than Black-white excellence gaps across the board.
• The Black-white achievement gap grows as students age through elementary school, while the Hispanic-white gap shrinks.

Key findings from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s study.

To close such gaps, the authors recommend investments in early childhood education and income supplements, such as expanding child tax credits.

“Because achievement gaps are already evident by elementary school, including as early as kindergarten, investing in high-quality early childhood education programs, especially in underprivileged communities, may be beneficial in mitigating the effects of socioeconomic disparities,” the report says.

In addition to early childhood investments, the authors also propose the following solutions:

• Support programs to help parents earn their high school diplomas or higher education credentials.
• Economic support and financial aid for low-income families.
• Addressing racial and ethnic disparities, including the adoption of 鈥渃urricula that reflect diverse cultures and programs that specifically support underrepresented students,鈥� and student-teacher racial and ethnic matching.

“Whatever the approach, there is no denying the urgency of making the U.S. educational system more equitable,” the report says. “…The time to act is now. By enacting comprehensive and inclusive policies, we can narrow achievement gaps and create a more just educational landscape for the next generation.”

You can download and read the full study .

A look a gaps in North Carolina

Achievement gaps — also known as opportunity or equity gaps — follow national trends in North Carolina.

, following the start of the pandemic, only 51% of students tested as grade-level proficient. Proficiency was even lower among historically disadvantaged students, at 33% for Black students, 40% for Hispanic students, and 35% for economically disadvantaged students.

While those rates slightly increased during , gaps and low proficiency rates persist.

More highlights from the report

Thomas B. Fordham Institute President Michael J. Petrilli wrote in the report’s foreword that “the vast racial disparities in socioeconomic conditions and prenatal and early-life health experiences explain the achievement gaps we see between racial and ethnic groups, at least at school entry.”

Citing by economists Roland Fryer and Steven Levitt, “Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School,” Petrilli writes that this suggests that “universal, race-neutral interventions designed to improve the academic, social, economic, and health conditions of the poor would lift all boats and would also narrow racial gaps.”

Using data from the federal Early Child Longitudinal Study — data cited by Fryer and Levitt, along with more recent data — Petrilli said the report aimed to answer a few questions:

• Had the relationship between socioeconomic achievement gaps and racial/ethnic achievement gaps shifted?
• Was the Black-white gap still growing during elementary school?
• And how did all of this look for the white-Hispanic gap and for subjects beyond just reading and math?

Here is a look at the measures explored in the institute’s paper.

The institute鈥檚 study found that family socioeconomic factors explain more 鈥渙f the Black-white achievement gap in first grade reading than in other subjects and grade levels.鈥� The report proposes this may be the case because parents play a larger role in teaching language skills to young children than they do for math and science.

鈥淭he advantages of high SES鈥攁nd disadvantages of low SES鈥攖hus show up more for students鈥� initial reading skills than for their math and science ones,” the report says. “As students get older and benefit from classroom instruction, their relative advantages and disadvantages start to matter less.”

However, while the gap narrows with age, there is still a gap. According to the report, this likely means “we still haven鈥檛 closed the ‘school quality gap’ between Black students and their white peers.”

As mentioned above, the report also found that family socioeconomic factors 鈥渆xplain more of the Hispanic-white achievement gap than the Black-white achievement gap.鈥�

According to the report, this could be because Hispanic children in Spanish-speaking families 鈥渉ave latent potential that is obscured by their lack of English skills.鈥�

The report also suggests that non-socioeconomic factors, racism, and bias affect Black children at higher rates than their Hispanic peers.

“For lower-income Black children, who are more likely to experience deep, persistent poverty than other groups, the combination of ‘adverse childhood experiences’ might exacerbate inequalities,” the report says. “And for middle class Black children, bias, stereotype threat, and related factors might be especially at play. This might also be why the Black-white achievement gap grows over the course of elementary school, while the Hispanic-white gap shrinks.”

Petrilli concludes: “When it comes to the interplay between race, poverty, and schooling, the honest read is that it鈥檚 complicated. What鈥檚 undeniable, though, is that much hard work remains, especially when it comes to providing effective schools to marginalized students, especially those who are Black. Let鈥檚 keep at it.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The result of lively and sometimes heated exchange among its seven co-authors, the report underscores ways that Arizona can better serve its youngest residents and their families. Early Learning Nation magazine interviewed Dr. Meek about the challenges the state鈥檚 early learning landscape faces and the opportunities to learn from other states.

Mark Swartz: This is your third “Start with Equity” report, right?

Shantel Meek: Yes, we published our first, in 2020. It dug deep on a national scale on discipline, inclusion of kids with disabilities and dual language learners. We looked at the data on how kids are faring and at the research into what works to support and address some of the disparities that we鈥檙e seeing. The report also included a policy agenda and recommendations. Later the same year we came out with Start with Equity: California, which coincided with the state鈥檚 creation of a , and a lot of our recommendations either aligned with or, indeed, informed that initiative.

MS: CEP is based in Arizona State University, so this report is a homecoming.

SM: I actually grew up in these systems that we’re talking about. I went to public schools my whole life, including through my graduate degree. I have my own kids now, one in the K-12 system, and one in the early care and education system. And so that certainly raises the stakes, increases my focus, makes me angrier.

MS: Where are the gaps in Arizona?

SM: I鈥檇 say we have major gaps across all three big domains we focused on in this report 鈥� equity, access and quality 鈥� all stemming from poor policies and chronic underinvestment. When Jan Brewer became governor in 2009, they zeroed out funding for child care in the state鈥檚 general budget. And we鈥檝e never recovered until the 2019 infusion of resources from the feds came in, and then the pandemic funding.

After years of outdated, stagnant child care reimbursement rates, Arizona saw a plummet of contracted providers with the state, probably not surprisingly, which results in families having fewer choices, which may result in kids who are using subsidy, likely being served in more segregated settings because there’s fewer of them. We don鈥檛 have a public pre-K system in the state that meaningfully provides access to three- and four-year-olds.

On the quality front, we鈥檙e behind on basic policies like ratios and group sizes and overlook entire populations of kids, like dual language learners, which make up nearly half of the state鈥檚 young children. So I think all of those are underlying challenges.

MS: What about the state鈥檚 Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS)?

SM: The QRIS captures important dimensions of adult-child interactions. But it also ignores many of the issues that disproportionately impact kids from historically and contemporarily marginalized communities. Almost half of the young children in the state are dual language learners, but our QRIS doesn鈥檛 even mention them.

Communities like the one where I鈥檓 from and across the borderlands have a much higher percentage, but practices and policies that really impact their early experiences 鈥� like dual language instruction and building their bilingualism 鈥� are not really considered as part of the broader quality system. Inclusion of kids with disabilities is not measured or required as part of participation in the quality system. Exclusionary discipline policies, which disproportionately impact Black children, are not part of the system.

At the end of the day, what we 鈥渃ount鈥� in rating systems, is what we value, what we resource. And if we don鈥檛 鈥渃ount鈥� the structural or process-oriented dimensions of quality that really matter to children with disabilities, to emerging bilinguals, to children of color 鈥� then the system wasn鈥檛 built for them. And that鈥檚 a problem.

MS: It doesn鈥檛 sound like the state is doing enough to support dual language learners.

SM: I鈥檓 Mexican-American, grew up on the U.S.-Mexico border speaking English and Spanish. My kids are growing up bilingual a couple hours north of where I grew up. So this is certainly very close to home. We have mountains of evidence to suggest that bilingualism and biliteracy is associated with a host of positive short- and long-term outcomes 鈥� across cognitive development, social emotional development, academic, school-family partnerships, college-going, earnings, even health. We know dual language education, where children learn English alongside a partner language 鈥� usually and ideally the home language, is associated with a number of academic advantages.

Still, an early learning program operating in my hometown of Nogales, where maybe 90% or more of children are growing up speaking Spanish exclusively or in addition to English, can offer instruction exclusively in English and be considered of the highest quality 鈥� five stars. It doesn鈥檛 matter that it鈥檚 wildly out of alignment with research because what you don鈥檛 count doesn鈥檛 matter.

MS: And this is in a state where one-third of the residents are Latino.

SM: Arizona is the last remaining English-only state in the nation. That applies to K-12 systems, not to early education, but it does create a climate where in most cases, early education has to transition these kids to English-only kindergarten.

There鈥檚 a disincentive to build on their home language 鈥� whether it鈥檚 Spanish or an Indigenous language 鈥� because of the fear that you鈥檙e not preparing them from this harsh, monolingual system that they’re about to transition into. The state superintendent for education recently filed a lawsuit because several school districts, including the one where my daughter goes, allow English learners into bilingual education or dual language programs. It鈥檚 a really hostile, center-stage issue in the K-12 space that certainly trickles down to early education. Not surprisingly, these policies have created a system where our English-learners are not set up to succeed, resulting in some of the worst graduation rates in the country.

MS: The report also sounds the alarm about children with disabilities.

SM: Yes, there are gaps across the system when it comes to serving children with disabilities. Take licensing, for example. There is no prohibition on excluding children with disabilities from child care settings. Programs often cite toilet training policies as a reason to exclude children with disabilities from their programs, as these kids are sometimes potty-trained a little bit later than their peers without disabilities. And training to support and serve kids with disabilities isn’t required in licensing.

While there is an inclusion coaching program in the state as part of the quality improvement system, it’s optional, so most of the regions in the state choose not to fund it. On the child care front, less than 1% of child care subsidies are going to kids with disabilities when the CDC says that about 1 in 6 kids has a developmental disability.

MS: How do you define equity?

SM: First and foremost, everything we do is informed by history, by an understanding of the roots of contemporary inequities and disparities. Then, at a systems level, we look at three things: access, experience and outcomes. Equitable access comes down to who gets in the door in the first place. Experience encapsulates everything from the teacher-child interaction to discipline, to praise, to the language of instruction. And “outcomes” refers to what our investments in programs and services make possible across various demographic groups.

MS: How about quality?

SM: We titled our QRIS report “Equity Is Quality, Quality Is Equity.” They are one and the same. You can鈥檛 have quality if you鈥檙e not paying attention to the experiences of kids from historically marginalized communities 鈥� who are the majority of kids in some places and the vast majority in some places.

Take, for example, a child care program that is informally excluding kids with disabilities by saying, 鈥淥h, we’re not the right place. We don’t have the right services.鈥� They’re turning away kids, but they could have a five-star rating. Across the country, there needs to be more understanding of the Americans with Disabilities Act in the child care space, because you’re not allowed to do that.

Think about a program serving all dual language learners and providing instruction exclusively in English. If we don鈥檛 count language of instruction as part of the rating system, this program could be rated a five-star and be unaligned with research on best practices for dual language learners. A program could conceivably be rated five stars and be expelling or suspending children, but if we don鈥檛 count that as part of our rating, families looking for information would never know that.

MS: What are the reasons for optimism in Arizona?

SM: There are state policy makers in office right now who have expressed support for child care, who have expressed an interest in equity, who have expressed an interest in really doing more for kids with disabilities, for kids who are bilingual and growing up bilingual, on discipline and other issues where we see racial disparities.

So I think that is promising and I think that’s exciting. The silver lining of being behind other states is that we can learn from them 鈥� what they鈥檝e done right, what we want to avoid. There鈥檚 still time to build a mixed-delivery, high-quality birth-to-five system that meets the needs of all our kids.

In Tuesday鈥檚 runoff to fill two remaining seats on the Atlanta school board, unofficial results show incumbent Aretta Baldon, who has the backing of organizations advocating for the city鈥檚 Black and low-income students, barely held on to her seat representing District 2. She received 50.7 percent of the vote, while businesswoman and former Atlanta Public Schools student Keisha Carey earned 49.3 percent.

Meanwhile, with over two-thirds of the vote, newcomer Tamara Jones, an urban planner, defeated opponent KaCey Venning in a race for the at-large District 7 seat. The incumbent did not seek re-election. 

All nine seats on the board were up for a vote in this election cycle. But because of a new state law staggering the terms, Jones, and the others holding odd-numbered seats, will serve two years before running again in 2023 for full four-year terms.

Responding to questions from a civic organization,聽聽emphasized her work to reduce the racial achievement gap, distribute resources more equitably across the district and open remote learning centers during school closures.聽聽said she will prioritize improving literacy instruction and said it鈥檚 important for the district to work closely with city and county officials to increase wraparound services for students and lower student mobility rates.聽

Five incumbents, including one who ran unopposed, appear poised to continue their terms on Atlanta鈥檚 school board following Tuesday鈥檚 election. Unofficial results show two newcomers 鈥� Katie Howard and Jennifer McDonald 鈥� will join them, but two other remaining races will be decided later this month in a Nov. 30 runoff.聽

In that election, incumbent Aretta Baldon, who was leading with 48 percent of the vote, will face challenger Keisha Carey. Tamara Jones, an urban planner, and KaCey Venning, an education and mental health advocate, are also headed to a runoff.

The election comes at a time when Atlanta鈥檚 population is growing more white and affluent, spurred in part by growth of the city鈥檚 tech sector. Overall, student achievement has improved in recent years, but advocacy organizations seized upon the election to raise awareness that many Black and Hispanic students aren鈥檛 sharing in that success. 

Unofficial results show incumbents Cynthina Briscoe Brown, Esh茅 Collins, current Chair Jason Esteves, Erika Mitchell and Michelle Olympiadis will hold on to their seats 鈥� a clear sign that voters are mostly satisfied with who鈥檚 running the district, said Anthony Wilson, executive director of Equity in Education, an advocacy organization that trained over 20 candidates for the board.The district鈥檚 all-time high of 80.3 percent likely has something to do with that, Wilson said. While he said he鈥檚 proud of the district鈥檚 progress, 鈥淚’m also concerned about the deep inequities that persist across our city’s schools.鈥�

The group endorsed candidates for seven of the nine seats on the board, including Baldon, Collins, Esteves, Howard, Mitchell and Venning. They also backed Keedar Whittle, who runs an education staffing agency, but was unsuccessful in his effort to oust incumbent Brown for an at-large seat on the board. Brown, an attorney, was leading with over 70 percent of the vote.

Regardless of the outcome in the two runoff races, the board leading the majority Black and Hispanic district will have at least three new members. Some candidates saw significant overlap between issues facing the city and the district. Venning, for example, mentors young Black boys, many of whom support their families by selling water at intersections and freeway off-ramps. She leads a nonprofit to connect them with members of the business community and other youth employment programs. Across the city, some of the 鈥渨ater boys,鈥� as they have become known, have been involved in violent incidents, contributing to concerns about rising crime 鈥� a major issue in the mayor鈥檚 race.

The election has energized groups focused on holding the 51,000-student district accountable for schools where most students score well below grade level. Equity in Education wants to see more wraparound services for students, integration efforts, and alternatives to suspensions and expulsions. 

The Latino Association for Parents of Public Schools is another group calling on the district to spread successful practices and programs from high-achieving schools to those that haven鈥檛 improved. Ricardo Miguel Martinez, president of the organization, said he鈥檚 focused on 鈥渆very race, every policy, every day鈥� and wants Latino parents not to be afraid to speak up about their children鈥檚 schools

鈥淲e look forward to working with all current, new and future elected officials to make sure Atlanta Public Schools and the city of Atlanta is equitable for all,鈥� he said.