Trends in Educational Access
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Sean Reardon
Leaders: Sean Reardon. Michelle Jackson
The purpose of the Education RG is to examine trends in the extent to which educational access and achievement are related to poverty and family background. This agenda is being pursued by (a) monitoring changes in the effects of poverty and family background on academic achievement, and (b) decomposing the total effects of background into a component pertaining to effects on performance (“primary effects”) and a component pertaining to effects on choices (“secondary effects”).
The scholars working within this RG are now examining state-level differences in the effects of social origins, uncovering the causes of the recent rise in the socioeconomic achievement gap, uncovering the causes of the yet more recent turnaround in this rise (among kindergarten children), and examining the ways in which high-achieving children from poor backgrounds can be induced to go to college. At our 2015 State of the Union event, a research brief on inter-state differences in racial and socioeconomic educational inequality was presented, with the brief showing that these differences are substantial.
Featured Examples
Education - CPI Research
| Title | Author | Media | |
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| State of the Union 2016: Education | Anna K. Chmielewski, Sean F. Reardon |
State of the Union 2016: EducationAuthor: Anna K. Chmielewski, Sean F. ReardonPublisher: Date: 02/2016 The income achievement gap in the United States is quite large relative to the 19 OECD countries examined here. Countries with higher levels of poverty, inequality, and economic segregation (among schools) tend to have larger income achievement gaps. |
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| Revisiting the "Americano Dream" | Van C. Tran | ||
| State of the States: Education | Sean F. Reardon | ||
| 60 Years After Brown: Trends and Consequences of School Segregation | Sean F. Reardon, Ann Owens |
60 Years After Brown: Trends and Consequences of School SegregationAuthor: Sean F. Reardon, Ann OwensPublisher: Date: 07/2014 Since the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, researchers and policy makers have paid close attention to trends in school segregation. Here we review the evidence regarding trends and consequences of both racial and economic school segregation sinceBrown. The evidence suggests that the most significant declines in black-white school segregation occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There is disagreement about the direction of more recent trends in racial segregation, largely driven by how one defines and measures segregation. Depending on the definition used, segregation has either increased substantially or changed little, although there are important differences in the trends across regions, racial groups, and institutional levels. Limited evidence on school economic segregation makes documenting trends difficult, but students appear to be more segregated by income across schools and districts today than in 1990. We also discuss the role of desegregation litigation, demographic changes, and residential segregation in shaping trends in both racial and economic segregation. We develop a general conceptual model of how and why school segregation might affect students and review the relatively thin body of empirical evidence that explicitly assesses the consequences of school segregation. We conclude with a discussion of aspects of school segregation on which further research is needed. |
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| Social and Economic Returns to College Education in the United States | Michael Hout |
Social and Economic Returns to College Education in the United StatesAuthor: Michael HoutPublisher: Date: 04/2013 Education correlates strongly with most important social and economic outcomes such as economic success, health, family stability, and social connections. Theories of stratification and selection created doubts about whether education actually caused good things to happen. Because schools and colleges select who continues and who does not, it was easy to imagine that education added little of substance. Evidence now tips the balance away from bias and selection and in favor of substance. Investments in education pay off for individuals in many ways. The size of the direct effect of education varies among individuals and demographic groups. Education affects individuals and groups who are less likely to pursue a college education more than traditional college students. A smaller literature on social returns to education indicates that communities, states, and nations also benefit from increased education of their populations; some estimates imply that the social returns exceed the private returns. |
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Education - CPI Working Papers
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| Who Enters Teaching? Encouraging Evidence that the Status of Teaching is Improving | Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, Andrew McEachin, Luke C. Miller, James Wyckoff |
Who Enters Teaching? Encouraging Evidence that the Status of Teaching is ImprovingAuthor: Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, Andrew McEachin, Luke C. Miller, James WyckoffPublisher: Date: 01/2014 The relatively low status of teaching as a profession is often given as a factor contributing to the difficulty of recruiting teachers, the middling performance of American students on international assessments, and the well-documented decline in the relative academic ability of teachers through the 1990s. Since the turn of the 21st century, however, a number of federal, state, and local teacher accountability policies have been implemented toward improving teacher quality over the objections of some who argue the policies will decrease quality. In this paper we analyze 25 years of data on the academic ability of teachers in New York State and document that since 1999 the academic ability of both individuals certified and those entering teaching has steadily increased. These gains are widespread and have resulted in a substantial narrowing of the differences in teacher academic ability between high and low poverty schools and between white and minority teachers. We interpret these gains as evidence that the status of teaching is improving. |
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| Race, Income, and Enrollment Patterns in Highly-Selective Colleges, 1982-2004 | Sean F. Reardon, Rachel Baker, Daniel Klasik |
Race, Income, and Enrollment Patterns in Highly-Selective Colleges, 1982-2004Author: Sean F. Reardon, Rachel Baker, Daniel KlasikPublisher: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality Date: 08/2012 Where a student attends college has become increasingly important in the last few decades. As education has grown significantly more important in the labor market, competition among students for access to the most selective colleges and universities has grown as well. In this brief we examine patterns of enrollment, by race and family income, in the most selective colleges and universities. We also simulate racial and socioeconomic patterns of admission to selective colleges under several types of "race-blind" admissions policies, including policies like the Top Ten Percent admissions policy currently in use in Texas and a similar policy in California. For the analyses in this study, we rely on data from three national longitudinal studies of students in the high school classes of 1982, 1992, and 2004. |
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| Consistent and Inconsistent Contraception Among Women 20-29: Insights From Qualitative Interviews | Joanna Reed, Paula England, Krystale Littlejohn, Brooke Conroy |
Consistent and Inconsistent Contraception Among Women 20-29: Insights From Qualitative InterviewsAuthor: Joanna Reed, Paula England, Krystale Littlejohn, Brooke ConroyPublisher: SCSPI Date: 05/2011 Joanna Reed, Paula England, Krystale Littlejohn, and Brooke Conroy examine in-depth interviews with over 50 unmarried women in their twenties to uncover why sexually active men and women who aren't desiring a pregnancy so often fail to practice contraception consistently. |
Education - Other Research
| Title | Author | Media | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How Much Protection Does a College Degree Afford? The Impact of the Recession on Recent College Graduates | The Pew Charitable Trusts |
How Much Protection Does a College Degree Afford? The Impact of the Recession on Recent College GraduatesAuthor: The Pew Charitable TrustsPublisher: The Pew Charitable Trusts Date: 01/2013 Past research from Pew’s Economic Mobility Project has shown the power of a college education to both promote upward mobility and prevent downward mobility. The chances of moving from the bottom of the family income ladder all the way to the top are three times greater for someone with a college degree than for someone without one. Moreover, when compared with their less-credentialed counterparts, college graduates have been able to count on much higher earnings and lower unemployment rates. Even during the Great Recession, college graduates maintained higher rates of employment and higher earnings compared with less educated adults. However, the question of how recent college graduates have fared has remained largely unexamined, and many in the popular media have suggested that the advantageous market situation of college graduates is beginning to unravel under the pressure of the economic downturn. This study examines whether a college degree protected these recent graduates from a range of poor employment outcomes during the recession, including unemployment, low-skill jobs, and lesser wages. |
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| Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Law Teaching | Society of American Law Teachers, Golden Gate... |
Vulnerable Populations and Transformative Law TeachingAuthor: Society of American Law Teachers, Golden Gate...Publisher: Carolina Academic Press Date: 03/2011 The essays included in this volume began as presentations at the March 19–20, 2010 “Vulnerable Populations and Economic Realities” teaching conference organized and hosted by Golden Gate University School of Law and co-sponsored by the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT). That conference, generously funded by a grant from The Elfenworks Foundation, brought together law faculty, practitioners, and students to reexamine how issues of race, gender, sexual identity, nationality, disability, and generally—outsider status—are linked to poverty. Contributors have transformed their presentations into essays, offering a variety of roadmaps for incorporating these issues into the law school curriculum, both inside the classroom as well as in clinical and externship settings, study abroad, and social activism. These essays provide glimpses into “teaching moments,” both intentional and organic, to help trigger opportunities for students and faculty to question their own perceptions and experiences about who creates and interprets law, and who has access to power and the force of law. This book expands the parameters of law teaching so that this next generation of attorneys will be dedicated to their roles as public citizens, broadening the availability of justice. Contributors include: John Payton; Richard Delgado; Steven W. Bender; Sarah Valentine; Deborah Post and Deborah Zalesne; Gilbert Paul Carrasco; Michael L. Perlin and Deborah Dorfman; Robin R. Runge; Cynthia D. Bond; Florence Wagman Roisman; Doug Simpson; Anne Marie Harkins and Robin Clark; Douglas Colbert; Raquel Aldana and Leticia Saucedo, Marci Seville; Deirdre Bowen, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Colin Crawford, and James Forman, Jr.; Susan Rutberg; Mary B. Culbert and Sara Campos; MaryBeth Musumeci, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, and Brutrinia D. Arellano; Libby Adler; and Paulette J. Williams. The editorial board includes Raquel Aldana, Steven Bender, Olympia Duhart, Michele Benedetto Neitz, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Hari Osofsky, and Hazel Weiser. |
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| The Impact of Early Experience on Childhood Brain Development: Nathan Fox | Nathan Fox |
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The Impact of Early Experience on Childhood Brain Development: Nathan FoxAuthor: Nathan FoxPublisher: Date: 04/2010 On April 13, 2010, the Center on Children and Families at Brookings and the Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University sponsored an event that focused on the science of early brain development and the role that chronic stress early in life plays in the arrested development of children raised in risky situations. The policy implications of these and similar findings were discussed. This segment features Nathan A. Fox, Professor, University of Maryland, describing pioneering work that he and his colleagues carried out in Bucharest, Romania, looking at how institutionalization of children can profoundly harm children’s brain development. |
| The Race Between Education and Technology | Goldin, Claudia, Lawrence F. Katz |
The Race Between Education and TechnologyAuthor: Goldin, Claudia, Lawrence F. KatzPublisher: Harvard University Press Date: 03/2010 |
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| Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success | Bowles, Samuel, Herbert Gintis, Melissa Osborne Groves |
Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic SuccessAuthor: Bowles, Samuel, Herbert Gintis, Melissa Osborne GrovesPublisher: Princeton University Press and Russell Sage Date: 01/2005 |
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Education - Media Results
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