In this brief, we use a nationally representative sample of ever-English learners (ELs; N = 783) to examine relations between EL concentration within classrooms and reading growth between kindergarten and Grade 5. Piecewise growth models were used to estimate relations for four developmental periods (K-1, Grades 1-2, Grades 2-3, and Grades 3-5).…

What role does schooling play in the development of racial/ethnic inequalities in academic skills? Seasonal learning studies, which allow researchers to compare the growth of achievement gaps when school is in versus out of session, provide important evidence regarding whether schools reduce, reproduce, or exacerbate educational inequalities. Most…

Dynamic measurement modeling (DMM) has been shown to improve the consequential validity of longitudinal mathematics assessment in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten (ECLS-K) database. Here, the authors demonstrate the capability of DMM to similarly improve the consequential validity of ECLS-K reading assessment through the…

Papay (2011) noticed that teacher value-added measures (VAMs) from a statistical model using the most common pre/post testing timeframe--current-year spring relative to previous spring (SS)--are essentially unrelated to those same teachers' VAMs when instead using next-fall relative to current-fall (FF). This is concerning since this choice--made…

Analyzing data from two nationally representative kindergarten cohorts, we examine the mathematics content teachers cover in kindergarten. We expand upon prior research, finding that kindergarten teachers report emphasizing basic mathematics content. Although teachers reported increased coverage of advanced content between the 1998-1999 and…

Single-timepoint educational measurement practices are capable of assessing student ability at the time of testing but are not designed to be informative of student capacity for developing in any particular academic domain, despite commonly being used in such a manner. For this reason, such measurement practice systematically underestimates the…

Research on science achievement disparities by gender and race/ethnicity often neglects the beginning of the pipeline in the early grades. We address this limitation using nationally representative data following students from Grades 3 to 8. We find that the Black-White science test score gap (-1.07 SD in Grade 3) remains stable over these years,…

The Equality of Educational Opportunity Study (1966)--the Coleman Report--lodged a key takeaway in the minds of educators, researchers, and parents: Schools do not strongly shape students' achievement outcomes. This finding has been influential to the field; however, Coleman himself suggested that--had longitudinal data been available to…

We investigated whether minority children attending U.S. elementary and middle schools are disproportionately represented in special education. We did so using hazard modeling of multiyear longitudinal data and extensive covariate adjustment for potential child-, family-, and state-level confounds. Minority children were consistently less likely…

Early studies examining seasonal variation in academic achievement inequality generally concluded that socioeconomic test score gaps grew more over the summer than the school year, suggesting schools served as "equalizers." In this study, we analyze seasonal trends in socioeconomic status (SES) and racial/ethnic test score gaps using…