There is a considerable debate about the direction and causes of change in U.S. student performance over the last 25 years. This study (1) estimates the net effect of changing family characteristics and demographics on aptitude scores and (2) compares the expected changes to actual changes to estimate the effects of factors unrelated to family. The conclusions undercut the conventional wisdom about failing schools, deteriorating families, and ineffective public investments and policies. The study estimates that changing family characteristics would boost scores by about 7 percentile points. These gains come primarily from higher parental education and smaller family size, which translates into more resources per child. For non-Hispanic white students, the actual gains in scores were approximately the same as expected from family changes. However, black and Hispanic students made far larger gains than non-Hispanic white students, and only about one-third of the gains could be explained by changing family characteristics. These large unexplained gains for minority students may be evidence that additional public investment in schools and social programs and equal educational opportunity policies have had marked benefits. The authors caution that the results should not be interpreted to mean that conditions have improved for every student, family or school, only that averaging across all 14-18-year-old students over the last 20 years indicates a positive change.
The following sources were consulted for data on Hispanic voting: United States Bureau of the Census, "Voting and Registration," Table 23; Institute for Puerto Rican Policy, "Latino Gains"; DeSipio, Counting on the Latino Vote, 59; ...
21 Hero, Latinos and the U.S. Political System, 60-61; Carol HardyFanta, Latina Politics, Latino Politics: Gender, Culture, ... Westview Press, 1995), 63; de la Garza et al., Latino Voices, 90; DeSipio, Counting on the Latino Vote, 50.
NELS:88 followed a cohort of students as they moved from the middle grades to high school and into postsecondary schooling or careers (Ingels, Thalji, Pulliam, Bartot, & Frankel, 1994). In 1988, a nationally representative sample of ...
This volume brings together leading experts from different disciplines to offer new perspectives on contemporary African American families.
A distinctive feature of the enterprise was the active participation of the following undergraduate students in all phases of this endeavor: Briana Barocas, Terri M. Burger, Nell Eppinger, Suzanne Epstein, Alexis Krulish, ...
U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Grissmer, D. W., Kirby, S. N., Berends, M., and Williamson, S. (1994). Student Achievement and the Changing American Family. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Glen E. Robinson and James H. Wittebols , Class Size Research : A Related Cluster Analysis for Decision Making ( Arlington , Va .: Educational Research Service , 1986 ) . 74. Douglas Mitchell , Cristi Carson , and Gary Badarak ...
The Effect of School Resources on Student Achievement and Adult Success . ... Findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress and Trial State Assessment . ... “ The Changing American Family and Public Policy .
The full regression estimates for the trend analysis are contained in Appendix s. ... 2The 1998 4th-grade state reading NAEP results show a slight gain over 1992 results that may indicate a possible slight downward bias in the 1994 test ...
This document outlines the joint hearing before the House of Representatives, between the Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Human Resources and the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities,...