Salopia, Massachusetts is a suburban town that is known as a great place for families to live because of the reputation of the public schools. But do the Salopia Public Schools equitably prepare its students for success and is the MCAS an accurate representation of the achievement gap?
Salopia has a growing Asian student population due to a thriving Indian immigrant community that attracts families to move to Salopia each year. According to Department of Education data, in 2008 Asian students made up only 12.1% of the 5,896 students in Salopia Public Schools population. By 2018, this percentage had nearly tripled, and 29.7% of the 6,214 students in Salopia Public Schools were Asian. The percentage of black students has remained consistently at about 2% over the last ten years, however, which makes it difficult to analyze racial achievement gaps because there are too few black students per grade for the state to report MCAS results for the group. Therefore, the graph below shows the percentages of Salopia students who passed the ELA MCAS in all grades, broken down by racial group, from 2008 to 2018 (see here).
The achievement gaps between races remains relatively consistent between 2008 and 2014, when the passing rate for white and Asian students was about 15% higher than that of black and Latino/Hispanic students. With the start of the Next Gen MCAS in 2017, however, the scores diverge and the passing percentage of white students was closer to 20% higher than that of black and Latino/Hispanic students. Most remarkably, the passing rate of Asian students was about 30% higher than that of black and Latino/Hispanic students with the beginning of the Next Gen MCAS. Before analyzing the MCAS results, I will pause to note that standardized testing may not be the best assessment of the achievement gap.
For example, research shows the appearance of the achievement gap depends on where the passing cut point is set.
There are not only more Asian students that pass the ELA MCAS than in other racial groups, but there is a higher percentage of Asian students who fall in the Exceeding Expectations category than the Meets Expectation category: the achievement gap may be larger than the passing percentages indicate. This graph also compares Salopia achievement gap in 2018 to the rest of the state, and it confirms that Salopia students performs better than average. But because the MCAS only tests certain subjects, research shows teachers often spend more time focusing on the topics and types of questions that the exams cover, rather than diversifying the curriculum to play to students varying strengths. Standardized tests additionally fail to measure more abstract skills like creativity, leadership, and problem-solving that are arguably more important but harder to assess.
Nevertheless, the MCAS does provide some baseline information about the achievement gap in Salopia. It is interesting to note that Asian students have the highest passing rate of any racial group in ELA despite the fact that Asian students are more likely to be non-native English speakers or English language learners (their achievement is even higher in math) than white students. Investigation into racial achievement gaps often focusing on the difference in performance between white students and underperforming students of color, usually Black and Latino/Hispanic students, but the higher performance of Asian students makes it clear that investigation is necessary to ascertain why different racial minorities have different achievement levels.
A major theory behind the achievement gap is that teachers expect black and Latino/Hispanic students to perform less well than white and Asian students, which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Black and Latino/Hispanic students also experience stereotype threat: since there is a stereotype that their race is intellectually inferior, research shows students feel stress “not only about the potential for personal embarrassment and failure, but also the potential for confirming the negative group stereotype.” The stress will generally make the students less successful on the assessment. Stereotypes about Asian students also exist but focus on their high academic ability, which contribute to their high academic success (but also creates enormous pressure on the students).
Although expectations about performance affect student achievement, Richard Rothstein argues that there could additionally be cultural practices that affect student academic performance: “[Latin American families] expect children to serve by assisting with chores, [Asian families] expect them to do so by studying.” In addition to aspects of racial culture that set Asian students up to achieve more than their peers, Rothstein shares that “…black students may value education less than white students because a discriminatory labor market has not historically rewarded black workers for their education.” There are factors beyond stereotypes that may be affecting how racial groups achieve academically in Salopia.
Heather Hill suggests that although Asian students perform well on tests, Salopia Public Schools may not be doing all they can to aid their achievement. It is clear that black and Hispanic/Latino students are not achieving to the same level as white students, which is a problem that must be fixed. While Asian students may be performing better than white students, they may not be achieving to their full potential either. Research shows that “Asian American students’ summer growth rates are often stronger than white students’, but Asian American students’ growth either resembles or even lags white students’ during the school year.” The research suggests that teachers focus on students who are behind, which means that highly achieving students spend time learning things that they already know.
The take away? Although MCAS data suggests that Salopia is doing a good job educating their students, there are still significant differences in minority achievement that must be investigated to ensure that all students are taught to their potential.
Post by: Kayla Freeman
*Note: A pseudonym was used in place of the actual town’s name.