New Research Shows Some Math Practices Help Minority Pupils

With some changes in the curriculum, a study suggests, educators can wipe out the achievement disparities in math within their schools that leave black and Hispanic students trailing their non-Hispanic white peers.

Published Nov. 23 in the online journal Education Policy Analysis Archives,the study is based on federal testing data on 13,000 4th graders. It found, for instance, that African-American children fared better on the tests of mathematics when their teachers spent more time teaching specific topics such as measurement and estimation. Hispanic students scored higher when their classes included plenty of opportunities to collect and analyze data.

Harold H. Wenglinsky, the study’s author, said the findings could offer an important window into the vexing problem of achievement gaps between students of different...