An Examination of the Difference in Reading and Mathematics Achievement between Black and White Students in 1st, 3rd, and 5th Grades and its Relationship to Family, School, and Classroom Variables

Abstract

White students typically score higher on average than Black students on reading and mathematics tests and this gap appears to grow larger as students get older. This study used data from the national Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) to follow about 7,400 students from 1st to 3rd to 5th grade and examined their performance on ECLS’ standardized tests in reading and mathematics. Two sets of research questions were explored: 1) does the difference in mean performance increase across time?, and 2) does the difference in mean performance decrease when one controls for family, school and classroom variables? Analyses were conducted using a mixed analysis of variance and structural equation modeling techniques. Results found that the performance gap increased for reading from 1st to 3rd grade, but not from 3rd to 5th grade. For mathematics, the gap increased continuously from 1st to 3rd to 5th grades. The difference between mean scores in both reading and mathematics dropped substantially when family, school and classroom variables were taken into account.