Analyzing the Results of a New National Study: Why Some “Two-Dimensional Problems” Need “Three-Dimensional Thinking”
[CLICK HERE
for the Entire Blog Message]
Dear Colleagues,
Introduction
Every day, I get
e-mail briefings discussing or analyzing a wide variety of world, national, and
professional issues, reports, or perspectives. One of my favorites is Smartbrief’s
“While You Were Working” (WYWW).
Last month, WYWW had
a story about an on-line personality assessment questionnaire with an
invitation to take it.
While I typically pass
on these opportunities (why would a psychologist want to know “why he ticks”? .
. . actually, I’m just joking), I jumped on this one.
Fifteen minutes
later—after completing the questionnaire using my “work persona,” I had my
“psychological profile.” It included the
following descriptors:
You like to think in plain and simple terms. Others describe you as down-to-earth,
practical, and conservative. You do not
react with intense emotions, even to situations that most people would describe
as stressful. You set clear goals and
pursue them with determination. People regard you as reliable and
hard-working. You have a strong interest
in others' needs and well-being.
If anything, relative to my work as an organizational
and school psychological consultant in districts across the country (and
world), I think that I am a research-to-practice straight-shooter.
That is, while it is never my goal to
offend, when the facts are clear, I am not afraid to share these facts—even if
they are counter to someone else’s psychoeducational beliefs, actions,
practices, or interventions. Indeed, as
a consultant, I truly believe that it would be inappropriate for me to withhold
my opinions—for example, with a superintendent—even though I know said opinions
may be counter to those of the superintendent him or herself.
As a bottom line: I am an advocate for students—working to
ensure that their academic and social-emotional outcomes are maximized from
preschool through high school—and beyond.
I believe that I need to be “true” to these students—many of whose
“voices” are not heard in their classrooms, within their schools, or across
their districts.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _
Describing
a Recent National Study Investigating Racial Discrepancies in Achievement and
School Suspensions
In this context of advocating for all
students, I want to review and analyze a study published last month on October
15, 2019 in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the American
Educational Research Association.
The article was titled, “Are Achievement
Gaps Related to Discipline Gaps? Evidence from National Data.”
[CLICK
HERE for original article]
But then, I want to connect the results of this
study with a topic that I have discussed in a number of Blogs this year: The
Funding Inequity between Majority Black and Majority White schools.
While a “hidden” variable in the “Achievement
Gap” study, I believe that the inequitable funding between schools that serve
mostly white versus mostly students of color may triangulate with the racial
achievement and racial discipline gaps found.
In fact, I believe that it may be a primary predictor in the achievement
and discipline gaps discussed in the AERA Open article. Indeed, in my past Blogs, we have already
discussed how inequitable funding correlates with some of the negative outcomes
for students of color—especially African-American students.
_ _ _ _ _
The
Achievement/Discipline Gap Study in a Nutshell
This study,
authored by Pearman, Curran, Fisher, and colleagues at Stanford University, the
University of Florida, the University of Louisville, and Drexel University,
analyzed the correlations between academic achievement and school suspension/disciplinary
gaps for White, Hispanic, and Black students—from third through eighth grade—from
over 2,000 school districts across the country.
The data were pulled from the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil
Rights Data Collection and the Stanford Education Data Archive for the 2011-12
and 2013-14 school years, and the districts were chosen to be nationally
representative.
Overall, the
statistical analyses showed that:
- Students of all races faced higher suspension rates in districts with bigger racial achievement gaps—but they took a particular toll on black students.
For every 10 percentage-point increase in a district’s gap in math and reading performance between white and black students, there was a 30 percent
larger black-white gap in suspension rates than the national average for similar districts.
Likewise, a school
district with a 10 percentage-point wider disparity in suspensions between black and white students would have a black-white achievement gap that was 17 percent larger than the average for similar
districts nationwide.
_ _ _ _ _
- For every 1 percentage point increase in the discipline gap, there was a 0.02 standard deviation increase in the Black-White achievement gap, and a 0.03 standard deviation increase in the Hispanic-White achievement gap.
This means that the
racial achievement gap in a district that suspended 10% of its Black or
Hispanic students but only 5% of its White students would be predicted to have
a Black-White and Hispanic-White achievement gap that was 0.10 and 0.15
standard deviations larger, respectively, than a district that suspended the
same proportion of minority and White students.
_ _ _ _ _
- Academically, the racial discipline gap in a district whose White students scored, on average, 1 standard deviation higher than its minority students would be predicted to have a Black-White and Hispanic-White discipline gap that was 3.67 and 1.24 percentage points larger, respectively, than a district whose minority and White students achieved at similar levels academically.
Districts with
higher levels of achievement for Black students had lower suspension rates for
Black students.
_ _ _ _ _
- Even after controlling for unobserved district-level characteristics (see a discussion of these below), a 1 percentage point increase in the Black-White discipline gap was associated with a 0.01 standard deviation increase in the Black-White achievement gap.
In other words, two
districts that were otherwise equivalent on observable and time-invariant
unobservable characteristics but that suspended differing shares of Black
relative to White students would also differ, on average, in racial achievement
gaps, with the achievement gap being larger in the district that suspended
greater shares of Black relative to White students.
Moreover, a 1
standard deviation increase in the achievement gap between Black and White
students is associated with a 2.2 percentage point increase in the Black-White
discipline gap after accounting for observable and time-invariant unobservable
differences between school districts.
_ _ _ _ _
- One reason for the positive adjusted association between the Black-White discipline gap and the Black-White achievement gap is that Black students perform poorer, on average, in districts that suspend them at elevated rates compared with their White counterparts. There is no evidence, however, that the racial discipline gap is predictive of White students’ achievement.
In other words, the
Black-White discipline gap’s positive relationship with the Black-White
achievement gap is attributable, in part, to the Black-White discipline gap
being predictive of lower achievement for Black student—but unpredictive of
White students’ achievement.
_ _ _ _ _
Significantly, Pearman and his colleagues were very aware of the district,
student demographic, and other variables that might confound the results of their
study. Thus, relative to the results
documented above, they statistically controlled (to neutralize) these different
variables—in essence, factoring their potential influence (or bias) out of the empirical
analyses.
Indeed, the authors stated:
(P)rior research has shown that out-of-school factors,
especially those related to poverty, influence student achievement and
disciplinary problems, with poverty-related factors being inversely related to
student achievement and positively related to disciplinary problems (Gregory et
al., 2010). Consequently, this study controls for a set of factors
at the community level that approximate the amount of disadvantage within
district neighborhoods.
The following characteristics were gathered from the
2009–2014 American Community Survey and aggregated to the level of the school
district: median income, percentage of adults with bachelor’s degree or higher,
percentage of households that are female headed, unemployment rates, and
percentage of residents living at or below the federal poverty line.
It is also possible that discipline and achievement
disparities may arise as the result of a broader racial climate in a school
district that disproportionately favors White students over Black or Hispanic
students, such as attitudes that lead teachers and administrators to differentially
suspend students by race or that lead teachers to differentially cater to the
academic needs of one group of students over the other (Mattison
& Aber, 2007).
This study therefore controls for two proxies of a
district’s broader racial climate: differential special education assignment by
race and differential gifted and talented assignment by race.
In addition to differential treatment by race, a
potential relation between racial achievement gaps and racial discipline gaps
might also be confounded by racial disparities in other key educational inputs.
For instance, discipline gaps and achievement gaps may arise because students
of color are disproportionately of lower income or because they are in bigger
classes.
Consequently, we also control for racial differences
in free and reduced-price lunch status, and racial differences in
student-teacher ratios.
_ _ _ _ _
As is evident in the results above, the links
between suspensions and test performance remained significant for black
students even after the researchers controlled for other district
characteristics, such as parents’ education levels, the concentration of
poverty among students, and the level of racial segregation among districts.
_ _ _ _ _
Summarizing the Study
The authors
summarized the results as follows:
We find evidence that districts with larger racial
discipline gaps have larger racial achievement gaps (and vice versa). Though
other district-level differences account for the positive association between
the Hispanic-White discipline gap and the Hispanic-White achievement gap, we
find robust evidence that the positive association between the Black-White
discipline gap and the Black-White achievement gap persists after controlling
for a multitude of confounding factors (e.g., parents’ education levels, the concentration
of poverty among students, the level of racial segregation among districts). We
also find evidence that the mechanisms connecting achievement to disciplinary
outcomes are more salient for Black than White students.
We also found evidence that the association between
the Black-White achievement gap and the Black-White discipline gap was
attributable, in part, to the tight coupling of achievement and discipline for
Black students in particular, who experience higher suspension rates in
districts with larger achievement gaps and who experience higher achievement in
districts that suspend them less frequently. Notably, this tight coupling of
discipline and achievement was not observed for White students. This pattern
indicates that the mechanisms connecting achievement and discipline (e.g.,
teacher biases, peer effects, feelings of belonging) are more salient for Black
than White students.
While the results of our study do not speak directly to
solutions to discipline and achievement gaps, they do suggest that
interventions aimed at addressing one gap may have potential to influence the
other. First, recent research has found that teacher professional development
focused on improving instructional capacity and other classroom practices
improves classroom behavior and reduces racial disparities in discipline (Gregory,
Allen, Mikami, Hafen, & Pianta, 2015), which may be particularly
the case for curricular and pedagogical approaches deemed successful at raising
the academic achievement of ethno-racial minorities, such as culturally relevant
teaching and ethnic studies programs (see, for instance, Dee &
Penner, 2017; Ladson-Billings,
1995; Milner, 2010).
Second, a body of evidence is emerging on alternative disciplinary practices
that can reduce the time students spend out of the learning environment.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _
Show Me
the Money: Does Discrepant Black-White School Funding Triangulate
with These Achievement and Disciplinary Results?
The Pearman and Colleagues study is both
impressive and significant to our greater understanding of the relationship
between academic achievement and disciplinary discrepancies among white
students and students of color.
And yet, it did not seem to emphasize a
third, triangulated factor—the funding discrepancies between majority white
versus non-white schools.
To make sure that I was not misreading the article,
I e-mailed Dr. Pearman to ask if I missed anything in the treatment of school
funding in their analyses.
Here is his response:
Thanks for the note, Howie—and thanks for your
interest in the study.
Our study did not focus on spending so I would be
cautious about extending our findings in that direction (we would have modeled
things a little differently had spending been a focus).
Nevertheless, I think you can find a partial answer to
your question in Columns 6 of Tables 1-4, which provides coefficient estimates
for included covariates in the preferred model (district FEs), including per
pupil spending.
Bear in mind that because we didn’t focus on spending,
we didn’t do anything with it besides simply control for it. Consequently, the
only thing the models reveal is whether school spending is related to either
the discipline gap or the achievement gap, but not whether school spending is
related to the relationship between the discipline gap and the achievement gap,
which sounds like what you may actually be interested in.
At any rate, school spending does show up as significantly
(and negatively) related to the Black-White and Hispanic-White achievement gap,
as might be (optimistically) expected. Interestingly, and somewhat
counterintuitively, school spending shows up as positively related to the
Black-White discipline gap, as shown in Column 6 of Table 3, despite being
negatively related in Models 1-5. Unfortunately, I have not thought much about
this coefficient (it wasn’t of interest in our study), so I do not have any
theories for this pattern at the moment.
_ _ _ _ _
So. . . in essence,
Pearman’s research found that, as school spending increased in the districts
that they studied: (a) Black-White and Hispanic-White achievement gaps
decreased; and (b) Black-White discipline gaps increased.
And yet, while
Pearman’s research controlled for school spending, it did not—as he noted—differentiate
between and explicitly analyze the funding gaps that have been previously established
between majority white and majority students of color schools (see below).
Had they run these
analyses, Pearman and his colleagues may have confirmed some of the research-to-practice
that we have previously discussed.
_ _ _ _ _
Summarizing What We Know about the Impact of School
Funding Discrepancies
Earlier this Spring, near the 65th
anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, I wrote
two Blog messages addressing the national issue and reality of how students and
schools are inequitably funded relative to their students’ psychoeducational
and multi-tiered academic and behavioral needs.
One of the “bottom lines” discussed was
that:
While segregated
educational facilities were deemed by the Supreme Court to be inherently
unequal, the quality of instruction and the availability of resources and money
in today’s schools—for many students from poverty and students of color—is
unequal.
Indeed, at the root of this statement was an
April, 2019 Report by the Shanker Institute, The Adequacy and Fairness of
State School Finance Systems. This
Report demonstrated that there is a cumulative state education funding gap
in this country of $23 billion per year favoring white over non-white
districts—a gap that is experienced by approximately 12.8 million of our
nation’s students.
Solving Student Crises in the Context of School Inequity: The Case for
“Core-Plus District Funding” (Part I). When Schools Struggle with Struggling
Students: “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”]
_ _ _ _ _
The Journey toward Real School Equity: Students’ Needs Should Drive
Student Services … and Funding (Part II). The Beginning of the Next School Year
Starts Now: The “Get-Go Process”
_ _ _ _ _
[CLICK HERE
for the Full Blog Message that provides:
- An in-depth summary of the two previous Blog messages above—focusing on the impact on students from poverty and students of color especially when they attend disproportionate—and lower-funded schools, and how these students’ academic and behavioral status directly relates to the Pearman study reviewed above.
- A comprehensive review of the May 15, 2019 Report from the Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce: Born to Win, Schooled to Lose: Why Equally Talented Students Don’t Get Equal Chances to Be All They Can Be, and how this Report relates to the Pearman research.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
High-poverty
non-white schools in this country receive significantly less money per pupil
each year than high-poverty white schools and middle or upper class dominated
schools, respectfully. This disproportionate
funding affects approximately 12.8 million students.
Because of this
financial inequity, these high-poverty schools have fewer resources than middle
or upper class-dominant schools, and they are typically staffed by less
experienced teachers who have more skill gaps, and who resign from their
schools more often and after fewer years in-rank. In addition, the students in these schools
typically have less access to high level science, math, and advanced placement
courses, and less access to needed multi-tiered academic and social, emotional,
and behavioral services, supports, programs, and interventions.
In their October
15, 2019 AERA Open study, Pearman and Colleagues found that:
- Districts with larger racial discipline gaps had larger racial achievement gaps (and vice versa).
- The positive association between the Black-White discipline gap and the Black-White achievement gap persisted after controlling for a multitude of confounding factors.
- The association between the Black-White achievement gap and the Black-White discipline gap was attributable, in part, to the tight coupling of achievement and discipline for Black students in particular, who experience higher suspension rates in districts with larger achievement gaps and who experience higher achievement in districts that suspend them less frequently.
- This tight coupling of discipline and achievement was not observed for White students. This pattern indicates that the mechanisms connecting achievement and discipline (e.g., teacher biases, peer effects, feelings of belonging) are more salient for Black than White students.
And while Pearman
and Colleagues controlled for school spending in their study, they did not differentiate
between and explicitly analyze the funding gaps established in the Shanker
Institute and Georgetown University studies, respectively.
Nonetheless, Pearman’s
research did find that, as school spending increased in the districts
that they studied: (a) Black-White and Hispanic-White achievement gaps decreased;
and (b) Black-White discipline gaps increased.
But until they
re-analyze their data to differentiate the funding in their majority white versus
majority students of color districts, we will not know whether there is a significant
funding-achievement-discipline triangle, and whether the seemingly
contradictory results immediately above are real or an artifact of the analyses
conducted.
_ _ _ _ _
What we do
know from the entire Blog discussion [CLICK HERE for the Full Blog
Discussion] is that:
- There is a relationship between the White-Black achievement and discipline gaps (Pearman and Colleagues);
- There is a significant funding discrepancy between majority white and majority students of color schools (Shanker Institute);
- The funding gap does significantly impact the academic achievement of students experiencing socio-economic inequity who attend schools with large numbers of poor students; and
- The funding gap correlates with factors whereby students demonstrating social, emotional, and behavioral (including disciplinary) challenges are not receiving the multi-tiered prevention, strategic intervention, and intensive need/crisis management services, supports, programs, and interventions that they need.
_ _ _ _ _
In the end,
districts and schools have more permission and flexibility (especially under
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) to distribute their funds to
differentially address the students and schools with the greatest need (i.e.,
Core-Plus Funding).
But funding aside,
there are ways to implement effective, evidence-based approaches that
address disproportionate curriculum, instruction, achievement, and disciplinary
practices.
For begin this
process, feel free to review two of our free monographs:
Implementing Project ACHIEVE at the School and District
Levels: School Improvement and Positive Behavioral Support
Systems/Social-Emotional Learning Overview
and
A Multi-Tiered Service & Support Implementation
Blueprint for Schools & Districts: Revisiting the Science to Improve
the Practice
[CLICK
HERE and Look at the Bottom of the Page]
While evidence-based
practices may long out-impact increases in funding, we still need to “level the
funding playing field,” and there are still too many districts—especially in the
rural areas of our country—who simply need more funding.
_ _ _ _ _
As always, I
appreciate those of you reading these thoughts.
If you have comments or questions, please feel free to contact me.
And please also feel
free to take advantage of my standing offer for a free, one-hour conference
call consultation with you and your team at any time.
Meanwhile, have a
Happy Thanksgiving—filled with good food, fellowship, and the warmth of your
families celebrating together.
Best,
Howie
No comments:
Post a Comment