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Can Tracking Raise the Test Scores of High-Ability Minority
Students?<br>
David Card and Laura Giuliano, <i>American Economic Review</i> vol. 106,
no. 10, October 2016, (pp. 2783-2816)<br>
<br>
Abstract<br>
We evaluate a tracking program in a large urban district where schools
with at least one gifted fourth grader create a separate
"gifted/high achiever" classroom. Most seats are filled by
non-gifted high achievers, ranked by previous-year test scores. We study
the program's effects on the high achievers using (i) a rank-based
regression discontinuity design, and (ii) a between-school/cohort
analysis. We find significant effects that are concentrated among black
and Hispanic participants. Minorities gain 0.5 standard deviation units
in fourth-grade reading and math scores, with persistent gains through
sixth grade. We find no evidence of negative or positive spillovers on
nonparticipants. <br>
<br>
Citation<br>
Card, David and Laura Giuliano. 2016. "Can Tracking Raise the Test
Scores of High-Ability Minority Students?" <i>American Economic
Review,</i> 106(10): 2783-2816. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20150484 <br>
<br>
from the paper:<br>
<br>
"While an important limitation of our analysis is that it pertains
to only a single school district, nevertheless the student
population in the District is highly diverse and <br>
arguably representative of the student population in many other large
urban districts. <br>
Overall, our results suggest that a comprehensive tracking program that
establishes a separate classroom in every school for the top-performing
students has the potential to<br>
significantly boost the performance of minority students – even in the
poorest neighborhoods of a large urban school district. Given the
high degree of economic and racial segregation<br>
in many urban districts, such a program could effectively serve
large numbers of high achieving and minority students, and it could do so
at little or no cost <br>
to other students or school district budgets.<br>
<br>
Margaret comments:<br>
<br>
The study was in a single district but covered students entering 4th.
grade in 140 different large elementary schools (must have been huge
district!)<br>
<br>
Remarkably, the g/t classrooms used the same curriculum and the same
achievement standards as all other classrooms (NOT a gifted "best
practice"). I was not surprised that many of the students
showed little effect. We have decades of studies showing that the
point of ability grouping is to enable g/t students to receive
higher-level curriculum and instruction and that gains are minimal when
this isn't provided. However, despite this, the authors still found
that there were significant benefits for the minority students in the
program and no corresponding losses for students not in the program. In
other words, it is possible that "detracking" has been
counterproductive--imposing the greatest costs on gifted/high-achieving
minority students. However, this is just one study and would need
to be confirmed by additional work. <br>
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