Achievement Disparities Between Minority and Nonminority Students in Suburban Schools

Abstract

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data on reading provide one means for examining and comparing the performance of minority and nonminority suburban-type communities. In the present study, we made use of NAEP computer tapes pertaining to reading proficiency scores of 13-year-olds public schools metropolitan communities (which the NAEP also designates as 1advantaged-urban) or those in or around cities having a population greater than 200,000, where a high proportion of the residents are professional or managerial positions (Applebee et al., 1988). We also utilized additional data from individual school districts that have reported discrepancies the of minority and nonminority suburban school districts. Table I shows reading proficiency scores for 1986 of African American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White' 13-year-olds such metropolitan suburban communities. African American and Hispanic 13-yearolds whose parents had attended college had average reading proficiency scores 16 and 13 points, respectively, below the average for comparable White students. The scores for the two minority groups were nearly half a standard deviation below the score for the White group. In a publication focusing entirely on issues involving disparities the performance of minority and nonminority large school districts, Frankel (1988) described how district officials of the Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools identified improvement the achievement and participation of Black and Hispanic students as one of their highest priority goals. The county initiated several school improvement efforts, including a planning process which requires each school to develop annual action plans as well as external review and monitoring arrangements focused partly on improving minority student achievement. As a result, the average performance of African American