Student Achievement in the Mississippi Delta Region: Analyzing the 2013 NAEP Eighth-Grade Mathematics Assessment

• In Event: Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: Using NAEP Data From a STEM Perspective

Abstract

The Mississippi Delta region has been described as possessing significant natural resources; yet, economic development and educational performance have trailed the rest of the nation (Andrews et al., 2002). Using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), students in the Delta region were compared to the rest of the nation through regression models and descriptive statistics. Our results show that students in the Delta are significantly rural, primarily White and Black, and attend school in economically disadvantaged counties. Overall, average student performance in the Delta region is 12 points lower than in the rest of the nation. However, characteristics like gender, Hispanic ethnicity, locale and parental education differentially predict student performance between these two regions.

Authors

• Sarah Grace, Brown University

• Jonathan Phelan, American Institutes for Research