Skip to main content

Mobile Navigation

  • National
    • Policy
      • High Expectations
      • Quality Choices
      • Personalized Pathways
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Gadfly Newsletter
      • Flypaper Blog
      • Events
    • Scholars Program
  • Ohio
    • Policy
      • Priorities
      • Media & Testimony
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Ohio Education Gadfly Biweekly
      • Ohio Gadfly Daily
  • Charter Authorizing
    • Application
    • Sponsored Schools
    • Resources
    • Our Work in Dayton
  • About
    • Mission
    • Board
    • Staff
    • Career
Home
Home
Advancing Educational Excellence

Main Navigation

  • National
  • Ohio
  • Charter Authorizing
  • About

National Menu

  • Topics
    • Accountability & Testing
    • Career & Technical Education
    • Charter Schools
    • Curriculum & Instruction
    • ESSA
    • Evidence-Based Learning
    • Facilities
    • Governance
    • High Achievers
    • Personalized Learning
    • Private School Choice
    • School Finance
    • Standards
    • Teachers & School Leaders
  • Research
  • Commentary
    • Gadfly Newsletter
    • Flypaper Blog
    • Gadfly Podcast
    • Events
  • Scholars Program
Flypaper

How tracking can raise the test scores of high-ability minority students

David Griffith
3.30.2016

This study examines the impact of achievement-based “tracking” in a large school district. The district in question required schools to create a separate class in fourth or fifth grade if they enrolled at least one gifted student (as identified by an IQ test). However, since most schools had only five or six gifted kids per grade, the bulk of the seats in these newly created classes were filled by the non-gifted students with the highest scores on the previous year’s standardized tests. This allowed the authors to estimate the effect of participating in a so-called Gifted and High Achieving (GHA) class using a “regression discontinuity” model.

Based on this approach, the authors arrive at two main findings: First, placement in a GHA class boosts the reading and math scores of high-achieving black and Hispanic students by roughly half of one standard deviation, but has no impact on white students. Second, creating a new GHA class has no impact on the achievement of other students at a school, including those who just miss the cutoff for admission. Importantly, the benefits of GHA admission seem to be driven by race as opposed to socioeconomic status. They are also slightly larger for minority boys than minority girls (especially in reading).

As the authors note, these differences between groups aren’t easily explained by factors like teacher quality, peer composition, and the “match” between student ability and the level of instruction—each of which might be expected to benefit all GHA students (or none). This interpretation is largely confirmed by a direct examination of these factors, which suggests that differences in teacher quality between GHA and non-GHA classes do not explain the achievement gains experienced by minority students in the former, and that differences in peer composition explain just 10 percent of these gains.

In light of these findings, the authors hypothesize that higher-ability minority students face obstacles in the regular classroom environment—such as lower teacher expectations and negative peer pressure—that cause them to underperform relative to their potential, and that some of these obstacles are reduced or eliminated in a GHA class. To support this hypothesis, they use data from an IQ-like test called the Nagliari Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT) to show that minority students have lower achievement scores than white students with similar cognitive ability. For example, black students’ third-grade achievement scores are between 0.2 and 0.45 standard deviations below those of white students with similar NNAT scores, suggesting an “underachievement gap” similar in magnitude to the boost these students receive from a GHA classroom.

In a previous study conducted in the same school district, the authors also found that switching from a giftedness identification system based on teacher nominations to an automated process based on NNAT scores led to increases of 80 percent and 130 percent, respectively, in the numbers of black and Hispanic students identified as gifted, suggesting that teachers were either unaware of these students’ cognitive ability or unwilling to overlook their comparatively low achievement. Based on this finding, the authors argue that high-achieving minority students may benefit from GHA classes in part because teachers are more likely to recognize their potential in a GHA context.

Citing the ethnographic research on minority underperformance, the authors also suggest that the pressure to avoid "acting white" by achieving at a high level may be reduced for minority students in a GHA class, where all students are labeled as gifted or high-achieving. As evidence for this hypothesis, they cite lower rates of unexcused absences and suspensions among minority students in GHA classes.

Both of these explanations are plausible (if difficult to prove). But regardless of the true explanation, the fact that high-achieving minorities see such clear benefits from a policy of achievement-based “tracking” should give die-hard proponents of “equity” pause. After all, it’s one thing to prioritize those at the bottom, but it’s something else entirely to hold back those who could achieve escape velocity because they are short on company.

Perhaps it’s time we found a better word for encouraging these students to embrace their academic potential than “tracking.”

SOURCE: David Card and Laura Giuliano, "Can Tracking Raise the Test Scores of High-Ability Minority Students?," NBER (March 2016).

Policy Priority:
Personalized Pathways
Topics:
Curriculum & Instruction
High Achievers

David Griffith is Associate Director of Research at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, where he manages or authors reports on various subjects including charter schools, …

View Full Bio

Sign Up to Receive Fordham Updates

We'll send you quality research, commentary, analysis, and news on the education issues you care about.
Thank you for signing up!
Please check your email to confirm the subscription.

Related Content

view
Ohio charter news logo
School Choice

Ohio Charter News Weekly – 2.3.23

Chad L. Aldis, Jeff Murray 2.3.2023
OhioOhio Gadfly Daily
view
Gadfly Bites logo
School Funding

Gadfly Bites 2/3/23—The good, the bad, and the obvious of voucher expansion

Jeff Murray 2.3.2023
OhioOhio Gadfly Daily
view
High Expectations

How much education is a public responsibility?

Chester E. Finn, Jr. 2.2.2023
NationalFlypaper
Fordham Logo

© 2020 The Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Privacy Policy
Usage Agreement

National

1015 18th St NW, Suite 902 
Washington, DC 20036

202.223.5452

[email protected]

  • <
Ohio

P.O. Box 82291
Columbus, OH 43202

614.223.1580

[email protected]

Sponsorship

130 West Second Street, Suite 410
Dayton, Ohio 45402

937.227.3368

[email protected]