The achievement gap between black and white students is directly linked to the racial composition of their schools, a study by researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research concludes.
Read a summary of “Racial Segregation and the Black-White Test Score Gap,” posted by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The study by the Cambridge, Mass.-based nonpartisan research group matched SAT scores from a third of test-takers in the country for the 1998 to 2001 high school graduating classes with information on the racial composition of their high schools and with family characteristics. The results indicate that racial segregation had large, negative effects on black students’ test scores.