Eighth-grade Achievement Research Articles

Family background, education, and earnings: the limited value of “test-score transmission”

AbstractThis paper investigates the relationship between the inter-generational transmission of educational achievement (“test-score transmission”) and the inter-generational transmission of higher earnings (“income transmission”). We use administrative data from Israel to track the evolution of education and earnings gaps between “second-generation” (SG) students, whose parents have some tertiary education, and “first-generation” (FG) students, whose parents have none. We find that SG students achieve much better results on the screening tests that regulate access to selective tertiary education than FG students with similar eighth-grade test scores. Consequently, they enjoy greater access to the most selective tertiary degree programs, crowding out FG students with higher eighth-grade achievement. Yet this advantage does not manifest itself in earnings differentials at age 29, similarly conditioned on eighth-grade achievement, which are not statistically significant, and we find no evidence that these patterns are driven by SG students choosing study fields with steeper earnings curves. We find evidence of two mechanisms that mediate the relationship between achievement gains and earnings: FG students compensate for fewer options in tertiary education by accumulating more labor market experience; and SG students are more likely to forgo higher earnings for non-pecuniary benefits in employment, particularly by choosing public-sector employment.

School’s Out: The Role of Summers in Understanding Achievement Disparities

Summer learning loss (SLL) is a familiar and much-studied phenomenon, yet new concerns that measurement artifacts may have distorted canonical SLL findings create a need to revisit basic research on SLL. Though race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status only account for about 4% of the variance in SLL, nearly all prior work focuses on these factors. We zoom out to the full spread of differential SLL and its contribution to students’ positions in the eighth-grade achievement distribution. Using a large, longitudinal NWEA data set, we document dramatic variability in SLL. While some students actually maintain their school-year learning rate, others lose nearly all their school-year progress. Moreover, decrements are not randomly distributed—52% of students lose ground in all 5 consecutive years (English language arts).

Selective Enrollment Public Schools and District-Level Achievement Outcomes from 3rd to 8th Grade

Fierce local debates throughout the United States surround the equity of admitting students to public schools using academic criteria. Although research has evaluated the central assumption of these debates—that Selective Enrollment Public (SEP) schools enhance the welfare of students who attend them—none has addressed the district-level outcomes associated with these schools. This is important because the selectivity and scope of SEP schools produce tiered school systems (SEP districts). This district-level process, in turn, calls for an analysis of district-level achievement outcomes. To address this gap, I compile an original list of SEP schools using an innovative web scraping procedure. I combine these data with newly available district-level measures of third to eighth grade achievement from the Stanford Education Data Archive. Analyses follow a difference-in-differences design, using grade level as the longitudinal dimension. This approach facilitates a falsification test, using future treated districts, to reject spurious causation. I find evidence of overall slower growth in mean math achievement in SEP districts and for white, black, and Latinx racial/ethnic groups separately. SEP districts also see an increase in the white–Latinx math achievement gap. This work highlights the importance of considering SEP schools as part of a differentiated school system.

Chronic absence, eighth-grade achievement, and high school attainment in the Chicago Longitudinal Study

Although not as commonly reported as average daily attendance, chronic absence data may be of significant importance for understanding student success. Using data from 1148 participants in the Chicago Longitudinal Study, we assessed the associations of chronic absence in the early middle grades, grades fourth through sixth, with eighth-grade achievement and three measures of high school attainment including four-year graduation by diploma, graduation by diploma by age 21, and any high school completion by age 21. The rate of chronic absenteeism, defined here as students missing approximately 14days of school or more in a year, was 15%. Using Ordinary Least Squares, probit regression, and inverse-probability-weighting regression-adjustment methods (IPWRA), results indicated that chronic absence in the early middle grades was negatively associated (d=−0.17) with eighth-grade math achievement and reduced the probability of four-year graduation by diploma by 18 percentage points, graduation by diploma by age 21 by 17 percentage points, and any high school completion by age 21 by 11 percentage points. IPWRA yielded similar estimates. Coefficients varied by subgroup with males and children of mothers who completed high school experiencing more detrimental effects. Associations of chronic absence with outcomes are important to understand because school interventions and practices which begin early can be effective in reducing the prevalence of absenteeism.

The Path not Taken: How does School Organization Affect Eighth-Grade Achievement?

Although rearranging school organizational features is a popular school reform, little research exists to inform policymakers about how grade spans affect achievement. This article examines how grade spans and the school transitions that students make between fourth and eighth grade shape student performance in eighth grade. The authors estimate the impact of grade span paths on eighth-grade performance, controlling for school and student characteristics and correcting for attrition bias and quality of original school. They find that students moving from K-4 to 5–8 schools or in K-8 schools outperform students on other paths. Results suggest four possible explanations for the findings—the number and timing of school changes, the size of within-school cohorts, and the stability of peer cohorts.

Creating a Collaborative Career Development Program for Middle Grades Students

Think about in the middle grades, and what comes to mind? If it is anything like the typical career day experience, you probably picture a packed auditorium where students, excited by missing classes, talk noisily among themselves while teachers attempt to shush them, and two or three career panelists, glassy-eyed with the shock of being thrust back into the middle grades, sit sweating in the front of a stuffy room. Career Day at Inquiry Middle School (a pseudonym) looks quite different; it is the culminating event of the Career Institute, a career development and college readiness program specially designed for young adolescent students. When middle grades students are asked to identify their career aspirations, many reflexively cite job titles such as doctor, lawyer, or basketball player, often demonstrating little knowledge of the skills and preparation they need to realize these career goals. The goal of the Career Institute, a program developed by Inquiry Middle School in Queens, New York, and a nearby college, is to help students identify exciting and achievable future careers by offering them opportunities to thoughtfully examine their own interests and abilities. The purpose of this article is to make the case for building and integrating a career development and college readiness program into the regular academic program of the middle grades. The literature clearly suggests that young adolescents should have access to activities that help them explore their interests and abilities from a college and career perspective (Hartung, Porfeli, & Vondracek, 2005; Magnuson & Star, 2000; National Middle School Association, 2010; Niles & Trusty, 2004; Trusty, Niles, & Carney, 2005). This article provides a description of the development and implementation of the Career Institute, a program designed to provide opportunities for young adolescents to explore their interests and abilities in relation to their current educational experiences and future college and career goals. After providing the conceptual and research-based foundation from which the Career Institute emerged, we demonstrate how it was integrated into the academic program of Inquiry Middle School. The article concludes with recommendations for educators interested in developing a similar program in their schools. Career development in the middle grades The middle grades are particularly important to students' career development; here students begin to make decisions that will impact not only their high school educational opportunities and experiences but also their post-high school educational and career options (Arrington, 2000; Trusty, Niles, & Carney, 2005). A recent research report from American College Testing (ACT) underscores the critical nature of career development and college readiness in the middle grades. The researchers found that of all the variables studied, the best predictor by far of students' college and career readiness was eighth grade achievement (2008). The authors suggest that improving college and career readiness skills among eighth grade students will have a dramatic impact on their post-high school opportunities. Career development begins in early childhood and continues throughout an individual's life (Super, Savickas, & Super, 1996). According to Super (1990) and Super et al. (1996), the early part of an individual's life can be characterized by the growth (ages 4 to 13) and exploration (ages 14 to 24) stages of career development. During these developmental stages, young people begin to develop a sense of identity that includes becoming aware of their interests and abilities (growth), and they begin to use information they have about themselves and the world of work to make tentative decisions (exploration) about their future educational and occupational goals. Thus, during the critical middle grades years, students need opportunities to gain greater self-awareness, access information about their educational and career options, and develop the skills and competencies they will need to make important decisions about their futures (ASCA, 2005; Campbell & Dahir, 1997; Lapan, 2004; Solberg, Howard, Blustein, & Close, 2002; Trusty et al. …

Student Achievement and College Selectivity: How Changes in Achievement During High School Affect the Selectivity of College Attended

Researchers who examine the link between high school achievement and educational outcomes include measures of achievement that conflate high school effects with achievement effects established prior to high school. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study, this article disaggregates achievement into achievement prior to high school (in the eighth grade) and changes in achievement during high school. The authors find that the prestige of the colleges that students attend is largely solidified by the time students enter high school. They also find that among high socioeconomic status (SES) students, lower achievers can enhance the prestige of the colleges they will attend by moving up the achievement distribution during high school. However, even if their gains are well above average, the prestige of the colleges they are predicted to attend will not surpass students who enter high school at the top or middle of the eighth-grade achievement distribution. These findings are similar for low-SES students. In contrast, the effects of achievement for middle-SES students are largely solidified by high school.

Focus of the Year: What Do We Know about Eighth-Grade Achievement?

The national assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is used by the federal government and by states to gauge achievement in several subject areas, including mathematics. The results of the NAEP tests in mathematics at the eighth grade are used here to help us explore students' mathematics achievement over the decade from 1990 to 2000. In particular, we use these data to counteract the media portrayal of students' achievement in mathematics as steadily declining.

School Disciplinary Climate: Characteristics and Effects on Eighth Grade Achievement

Seven dimensions of school disciplinary climate were identified based on a representative sample of grade 8 students in the United States. Within schools students varied considerably in their perceptions and experiences about discipline. The variation was related mainly to students' socioeconomic status (SES), sex, and ethnicity. There was a significant contextual effect of school mean SES on disciplinary climate, larger titan the individual effect of SES. Schools with primary or intermediate grades tended to have more favorable disciplinary climates titan either junior or senior high schools. School location had small effects on disciplinary climate. The disciplinary measure with the strongest relationship to academic achievement pertained to classroom disruption.

School Disciplinary Climate: Characteristics and Effects on Eighth Grade Achievement

Seven dimensions of school disciplinary climate were identified based on a representative sample of grade 8 students in the United States. Within schools students varied considerably in their perceptions and experiences about discipline. The variation was related mainly to students' socioeconomic status (SES), sex, and ethnicity. There was a significant contextual effect of school mean SES on disciplinary climate, larger titan the individual effect of SES. Schools with primary or intermediate grades tended to have more favorable disciplinary climates titan either junior or senior high schools. School location had small effects on disciplinary climate. The disciplinary measure with the strongest relationship to academic achievement pertained to classroom disruption.

Modeling Mexican Americans’ Educational Expectations: Longitudinal Effects of Variables Across Adolescence

Using a national sample of Mexican Americans, the authors developed structural equation models of the effects of four eighth-grade latent variables on educational expectations assessed 6 years later. Models for Mexican American women and men did not differ from one another. The latent variable, parents’ influences, had a strong positive effect on educational expectations at late adolescence. Parents’ influences dominated the effects of the other latent independent variables, socioeconomic status, eighth-grade achievement test scores, and self-perceptions. The four eighth-grade latent variables explained 41% of the variability in educational expectations at late adolescence. The findings reveal consistencies and inconsistencies with previous research findings and models.

Peer effects on student achievement: evidence from Chile

This paper reports estimates of peer effects on student achievement, using a 1997 census of eighth-grade achievement in Chile. The data allow detailed measures of peer characteristics to be constructed for each classroom within a school. The paper addresses the endogeneity of peer variables by including school fixed effects that control for unobserved family and student characteristics. The estimates suggest that the classroom mean of mothers’ education is an important determinant of individual achievement, though subject to diminishing marginal returns. Additional specifications using family fixed effects are not suggestive that estimates are biased by within-school sorting.

Science Achievement Growth Trajectories: Understanding Factors Related to Gender and Racial–Ethnic Differences in Precollege Science Achievement

Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and longitudinal data from the first three waves of the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88), we examined achievement and growth rates in precollege science by racial–ethnic and gender subgroups. We found socioeconomic status and previous grades strongly and positively related to students’ eighth-grade achievement across all racial–ethnic by gender subgroups. We also found locus-of-control to be strongly related to eighth-grade science achievement for all subgroups except Asian American males. In modeling the growth rate, we found that the quantity of science units completed in high school was the only consistent predictor of science growth rates across all racial–ethnic by gender subgroups. The relationships between individual-level factors and science growth rates differed greatly for the remaining individual-level variables, highlighting the need for further research that both disaggregates data by race–ethnicity and gender.

Facing Facts in U.S. Science and Mathematics Education: Where We Stand, Where We Want To Go.

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) provides data that seems clearly important to science and mathematics education in the U.S. TIMSS gathered extensive data on curriculum, textbooks, teachers, and instructional practices in science and mathematics education and some of these data are presented and discussed. Eighth grade achievement data show the U.S. to be somewhat above average in science achievement but consistently average or below in mathematics. U.S. official curricula cover comparatively many topics and are relatively unfocused. U.S. science and mathematics textbooks typically take a cautious, inclusive approach keeping traditional content while adding new reform topics. They thus lack. Teachers, without guidance to help them focus, typically divide their attention among many topics. Empirically, there is little agreement in the U.S. on what is truly “basic” judging by common topics among curricula and textbooks. U.S. teaching, at least in mathematics, is teacher and moves among many different activities, failing to tell a coherent story. We must face these as we seek to find ways to become what we want to be in providing science and mathematics education.

Effects of Parental Involvement on Eighth-Grade Achievement

Les AA. s'interrogent sur l'influence et le role des parents en ce qui concerne l'education et la reussite scolaire des enfants. Ils s'interrogent plus particulierement sur l'impact du statut socio-economique. Ils presentent un certain nombre de donnees collectees aux Etats-Unis concernant des eleves de college. Ils constatent que si l'assistance aux reunions pedagogiques est variable, en revanche, la surveillance et l'aide aux devoirs octroyee par les parents aux enfants est tres similaire quel que soit leur statut socio-economique. Ils montrent que le travail personnel est le facteur principal de la reussite scolaire