Long-run Trends in the U.S. SES-Achievement Gap

Eric Hanushek, Jacob D. Light (), Paul E. Peterson (), Laura M. Talpey () and Ludger Woessmann
Additional contact information
Jacob D. Light: Department of Economics Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305
Paul E. Peterson: Department of Government Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138
Laura M. Talpey: Hoover Institution Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305

Education Finance and Policy, 2022, vol. 17, issue 4, 608-640

Abstract: Rising inequality in the United States has raised concerns about potentially widening gaps in educational achievement by socioeconomic status (SES). Using assessments from LTT-NAEP, Main-NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA that are psychometrically linked over time, we trace trends in SES gaps in achievement for U.S. student cohorts born between 1961 and 2001. Gaps in math, reading, and science achievement between the top and bottom quartiles of the SES distribution have closed by 0.05 standard deviation per decade over this period. The findings are consistent across alternative measures of SES and subsets of available tests and hold in more recent periods. At the current pace of closure, the achievement gap would not be eliminated until the second half of the 22nd century.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1162/edfp_a_00383
Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Long-Run Trends in the U.S. SES-Achievement Gap (2020)
Working Paper: Long-Run Trends in the U.S. SES-Achievement Gap (2020)
Working Paper: Long-run Trends in the U.S. SES-Achievement Gap (2020)
Working Paper: Long-run Trends in the U.S. SES-Achievement Gap (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:edfpol:v:17:y:2022:i:4:p:608-640

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://mitpressjour ... rnal/?issn=1557-3060

Access Statistics for this article

Education Finance and Policy is currently edited by Stephanie Riegg Cellini and Randall Reback

More articles in Education Finance and Policy from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().