Uneven Progress: Trends in Academic Performance Among U.S. School Districts*

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 22. Math Education

Abstract

Average student performance in math and reading has improved since the 1970s .
1
However, we know little about how trends in improvement trends vary across school
districts and student populations. To describe the variation in these trends across
districts and demographic groups, this study leverages the Stanford Education Data
Archive, which includes over three million test scores of third through eighth graders
from over 11,000 school districts in the U.S. from 2009 through 2016. We show how
districts’ performance trends are related to changes in district characteristics, including
district socioeconomic indicators and student-teacher ratios. The average change in
achievement for all school districts is 0.007 standard deviations (0.019 grade levels) per
year, translating to a ten-year gain of ⅕ of a grade level, an indicator of substantial
long-term improvement. There is significant variation, however. Over 10 years, 1/6 of
districts will have improved by more than 0.350 SDs (over 1 GL), and 1/6 will have
declined by more than 0.210 SDs (⅔ GLs). Further, some student demographics made
more gains than others. The average district’s black students’ scores improved annually
by only 0.003 SDs (0.010 GLs), while the average district’s white students’ scores
improved annually by 0.008 SDs (0.022 GLs) and the average district’s Hispanic
students’ scores improved annually by 0.012 SDs (0.035 GLs). Although observations
are not student-level, this study provides some evidence that the black-white
achievement gap may be growing, while the Hispanic-white achievement gap may be
shrinking.

Authors

• Kaylee Matheny, Stanford

• Marissa Elena Thompson, Stanford University

• Carrie Townley Flores, Stanford University

• Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University