Socioeconomic Tipping Points: Reconsidering Approaches to School Success

• In Event: Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Socioeconomic Inequality and Student Achievement

Abstract

This study investigated whether school-level socio-economic "tipping points" exist in the likelihood of overall success at a large, diverse school system of 138 elementary schools. HLM analyses indicated a significant link between overall school poverty and student achievement, over and above the link found between individual student poverty and achievement. The overall inverse linear relation between school-level poverty and school-wide achievement accelerated when school-level poverty hit 20 percent ("tipping point 1”) and decelerated when school poverty reached 40 percent ("tipping point 2”). The paper discusses potential reasons for the tipping points, along with actions school districts might consider to reduce school-level poverty at schools demonstrating persistent achievement challenges immune to other efforts.

Authors

• Ludmila Z Hruda, Fairfax County Public Schools

• Recardo V. Sockwell, Gatehouse Administration Center

• Kahlil Ford