First Grade Reading Suffers in Segregated Schools

http://fpg.unc.edu/news/first-grade-reading-suffers-segregated-schools

07/29/2014

A groundbreaking study from the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute has found that African-American students in first grade experience smaller gains in reading when they attend segregated schools—but the students’ backgrounds likely are not the cause of the differences.

According to the Center for Civil Rights, although the United States is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, segregation is still on the rise. To better understand segregation’s impact on student performance, FPG scientists looked at nearly 4000 first graders in public schools nationwide.

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Kainz said that researchers have long faced a difficult problem when investigating the reasons behind differences in reading development or other learning outcomes in segregated settings.

“The economic, social, and academic backgrounds of the students who attend segregated schools could be the cause of differences in achievement—and not aspects of the segregated settings themselves,” said Kainz. The challenge, she explained, is in disentangling one group of potential causes from the other.

In order to separate student characteristics from aspects of segregated public schools, Kainz used a statistical technique called "propensity score matching," which allows for comparison of reading growth in segregated and non-segregated schools, while also accounting for numerous differences in the students’ backgrounds. When the analysis revealed that African American students displayed less growth in reading during first grade in segregated schools than in other public schools, Kainz realized the primary reason was the schools themselves—not the students.

“When similar groups of first graders do better in one type of school than another, then it must be some aspect of the school that accounts for the difference,” Kainz said. “This study goes further than any other in being able to say, ‘It’s not the kids.’”

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