Socioeconomic Status and Standardized Tests: Achievement Gaps, Alternate Assessments, and Opting Out

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Across the United States, students from poorer family backgrounds not only have access to fewer educational resources (e.g., family resources, neighborhood resources, preschool programs, and after school activities) that are predictive of academic success, but may have less support or advocacy from parents to alter their standardized test taking conditions. This symposium brings together four papers that describe how socioeconomic status influences rates of opt out on accountability assessments, rates of special education testing and testing with accommodations, and, subsequently, the test scores and gaps between poor and non-poor students. Together, these papers provide new population-based evidence of how various aspects of standardized testing shape differences in the educational opportunities available to economically disadvantaged students.

Sub Unit

• Division L - Educational Policies and Politics / Division L - Section 5: Testing and Accountability

Chair

• Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University

Papers

• Opt-Out and Socioeconomic Status Across U.S. School Districts - Erin Michelle Fahle, Stanford University; Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University; Demetra Kalogrides, Stanford University; Sam Trejo, Stanford University

• Exploring the Impact of Opting Out on Measures of School Achievement - Rajendra Chattergoon, University of Colorado - Boulder; Benjamin R. Shear, University of Colorado Boulder; Elena Kitaoka Diaz-Bilello, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Achievement Gaps Between Poor and Non-Poor Students in U.S. School Districts - Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University; Erin Michelle Fahle, Stanford University; Heewon Jang; Elise Dizon-Ross, Stanford University

Discussant

• Jennifer Jennings, Princeton University