Paul E. Barton, Educational Testing Service
November 2003
The basic premise of this report is straightforward: efforts to close the achievement gaps between whites and minorities, rich and poor, will be for naught unless policy makers, educators, and parents recognize and address the multiplicity of factors - both in school and out - that cause them. This meta-synthesis of the most respected studies of student achievement includes a review of data from the National Center for Education Statistics, data from Child Trends, and the seminal work of researchers like James Coleman, Anthony Bryk, Terry Moe, and Eric Hanushek. The factors influencing academic achievement are "parsed" by the author into 14 "correlates of school achievement." The correlates fall under three general categories - early development, the school environment, and home learning environment - and range from weight at birth, to lead poisoning, to teacher quality, to class size, to the amount of television watched, to parent participation in a child's school. In all 14 correlates of achievement, there were gaps between the minority and majority student populations. The report concludes that identifying the range of factors that influence student achievement is the first step to doing something about the problems. True enough, we guess, though we do already know something about how to shrink the achievement gap--take for example the KIPP model and the systematic reforms well outlined in "No Excuses" (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=116#1461), a startling book that chronicles many of the same problems but goes the additional mile by providing concrete recommendations. This report would benefit from a similar practical look at how to combat persistent achievement gaps. Still, it's worth checking out; go to http://www.ets.org/research/pic/parsing.pdf.
