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Children who come from families with a low socio-economic status develop academic skills more slowly than their peers from families with a higher status.…This difference is directly related to neurological changes that a child’s brain undergoes as a result of the trauma associated with experiencing poverty. These changes can begin as early as age two. (“South Carolina: Structural Factors Associated with Poverty,” Sisters of Charity Foundation, 2020)
The difference in cognitive skills between low- and high-income children is already apparent when they enter kindergarten, and research tends to find that it holds steady from there. In other words, children from low-income households typically enter school behind their peers and never catch up. (Sacks, V., “The Other Achievement Gap: Poverty and Academic Success,” Child Trends, 2016)
[Due to higher levels of burnout and turnover,] teachers in high-poverty schools are [more often] inexperienced and often less effective than their more experienced peers who are often targeted for hire by higher-income schools and districts. The lack of high quality instruction serves to only further separate academic achievement levels for students in high-poverty schools from peers in high-income schools or districts. (“Position Statement: Poverty and Its Impact on Students’ Education,” National Association of Secondary School Principals, 2020)
Indicators reflecting poor attendance, misbehavior, and course failure in sixth grade can be used to identify 60% of the students who will not graduate from high school.
In a study of high school freshmen, researchers found that attendance in this pivotal transition year was a key indicator of whether students would finish high school. The study also found attendance and studying more predictive of dropout than test scores or other student characteristics. In fact, 9th grade attendance was a better predictor of dropout than 8th grade test scores.
Attendance problems in the early years predicted absenteeism in later grades, and students with the highest absenteeism typically scored lower on state assessments. (“Key Research: Why Attendance Matters for Achievement and How Interventions Can Help,” Attendance Works, 2016)
Students who live in communities with high levels of poverty are four times more likely to be chronically absent. Absenteeism in the first month of school can predict poor attendance throughout the school year. Half the students who miss 2-4 days in September go on to miss nearly a month of school “10 Facts about School Attendance,” Attendance Work
Students suffer academically from having chronically absent classmates as exhibited across both reading and math testing outcomes. Chronic absenteeism not only has a damaging effect on those individuals missing excessive school days but also has the potential to reduce outcomes for others in the same educational setting. (Gottfried, M. A., ”Chronic Absenteeism in the Classroom Context: Effects on Achievement,” Urban Education, 2019)
Also see “Why Attendance Matters: Making the Case,” Attendance Works.
A meta-analysis of 23 studies found that students with disabilities on average performed more than three years below their nondisabled peers. A research study published by the American Psychological Association in 2016 … found that achievement gaps for [students with disabilities] changed very little across grades. After four years, none of the groups [of students with disabilities] had ‘caught up’ with the students in [general education] in their reading comprehension achievement. Without early, aggressive intervention, students with disabilities will continue to lag behind their nondisabled peers, which is why special education plays such a vital role in leveling the academic playing field. (“Is Progress Being Made Toward Closing the Achievement Gap in Special Education? ” University of Texas Permian Basin)
Students with disabilities are affected by the difficulty school districts have in filling special education teaching positions. Nationally, during the 2020-21 school year, 40% of public schools that had a special education teaching vacancy reported that they either found it very difficult to fill the position or were not able to do so. (Schaeffer, K., “What federal education data shows about students with disabilities in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, 2023) In South Carolina, special education had the highest number of vacant teaching positions (290) in the fall of the 2023-24 school year. (“South Carolina Annual Educator Supply & Demand Report, 2023-24,” Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention & Advancement)
Special Education and IEP: Each public school child who receives special education and related services must have an Individualized Education Program (IEP). Each IEP must be designed for one student and must be a truly individualized document. The IEP creates an opportunity for teachers, parents, school administrators, related services personnel, and students (when appropriate) to work together to improve educational results for children with disabilities. The IEP is the cornerstone of a quality education for each child with a disability. (“A Guide to the Individualized Education Program,” U.S. Dept. of Education)
The achievement gap between multilingual learners (MLs) and their English-proficient peers is well documented, including both their lower scores on standardized tests and their lower graduation rates. Even when public preschool programs are widely available to multilingual learners through their school districts, preschool-aged ML children enroll in preschool at a lower rate than their non-ML peers. … Even with broad access to Algebra I and advanced math and science courses, ML high school students were less likely to enroll in these courses than non-MLs. (“Educational Experiences of English Learners: Access to and Enrollment in Early Learning Programs, Advanced Coursework, and Dual Credit Programs.” U.S. Dept. of Education.)
Unlike other groups (e.g. racially minoritized students), multilingual learner status is dynamic. Every year, new students enter the subgroup to receive services while students who become proficient in English exit the subgroup. Once successful MLs leave the subgroup, they no longer factor into the evaluation of MLs’ performance. Experts argue this creates a “catch-22” wherein the success of the highest performing MLs is not recognized because they are no longer considered MLs. … The best solution proposed to date involves disaggregating and reporting all ML outcomes by former and current MLs in addition to creating an “ever-ML” group to track the entire group of current and former MLs across their K-12 trajectories. (Muniz, J. “Rethinking the English Learner Achievement Gap,” New America, 2020)
This is important since research on multilingual learners has shown that multilingual students who achieve proficiency on English reading tests by 8th grade fare as well as their non-ML peers and even outperform non-MLs on math tests, attendance, and course grades. (Unidos US, “Latino Student Success: Advancing U.S. Educational Progress for All,” 2022)
Adverse Childhood Experiences: “Adverse Childhood Experiences,” or ACEs, include household exposures to mental illness, substance use disorder, and/or incarceration; parental separation/divorce; domestic violence; and abuse (physical, emotional, and/or sexual). Experiencing one or more of these events also induces toxic stress that significantly alters brain development. While ACEs can impact children across all racial/ethnic groups, they are much more common in Black (64%) and Hispanic (51%) children compared to white children (40%). (“South Carolina: Structural Factors Associated with Poverty,” Sisters of Charity Foundation, 2020)
Homelessness: Racial disparities are evident in the likelihood of students becoming homeless. Compared to their White peers in high school, Black students are 2.67 times more likely to experience homelessness, and Hispanic students are 1.68 times more likely to experience homelessness. (“Common Questions” SchoolHouse Connection)
Providing Childcare: Results suggest that [with] limited access to childcare [for these households], [providing childcare for younger siblings] may be constraining high school completion for Black, Hispanic, and Multiracial [high school] students versus Whites. (Ford, J.E. and Triplett, N, “E(race)ing Inequities: Does race influence who drops out of school? It’s complicated,” EdNC, 2019)
Lack of Teachers of Color: Students of color benefit over the short and long run when taught by a same-race teacher. This finding is now well established in empirical research. Particularly for Black students, having even one same-race teacher improves test scores, graduation rates, attendance, and behavioral outcomes. (Gershenson, S. and Papageorge, ., “Through Peer Learning, the Benefits of Teacher Diversity Extend Beyond Classroom Walls,” Brookings, 2023) Not only are teachers of color underrepresented in the workforce [teaching profession], they also leave the profession at a higher rate than their White peers. (“Why Teachers of Color Matter for Students of Color to Succeed,” Edutopia, 2020)
Overrepresentation in School Suspensions: African American adolescents [males and females] are grossly overrepresented in rates of school suspensions for minor disciplinary infractions….In addition, these suspensions predict poor school grades and school climate perceptions for African American youth. (Del Toro, J. and Wang, M., “T he Roles of Suspensions for Minor Infractions and School Climate in Predicting Academic Performance Among Adolescents,” American Psychologist, 2021)
Bullying: Nationally, Black or African American students in 2020-21 composed 15% of enrollment but accounted for 37% of reported incidents of harassment or bullying. (Pendharkar, E. and Sparks, S.D., “New National Data Show Depth of Disparities in a Chaotic Year of Schooling,” Education Week , 2023)
Teacher Biases: Our research suggests that teachers’ biases may contribute to the seemingly entrenched disparities in academic achievement and suspensions between Black and White students …. But, recent evidence on interventions designed to reduce implicit bias show little overall impact on behavior. That may be because implicit bias has a large contextual component. According to some scholars of implicit bias, aggregate measures of bias, like the ones we use, are better thought of as measuring the psychological residue of structural racism (e.g., redlining and policing) rather than fixed attitudes that people hold regardless of the context. In other words, as long as structural racism looms large, implicit biases will, too. Working to both dismantle the contextual factors that induce greater implicit bias and attending to individual teachers’ implicit attitudes is likely necessary. (Dhaliwal, T.K. et al., “Educator bias is associated with racial disparities in student achievement and discipline ,” Brookings, 2020)
Need to Support Their Family: Among Latino youths who have a high school education or less and are not currently enrolled in school, nearly three-quarters (74%) say they did not continue their education due to needing to help support their family. The foreign born make up 35% of all Latino youths, and they are much more likely than native-born Latino youths to be supporting or helping to support a family either in the U.S. or in their native country .… Young immigrant Hispanics appear to have financial commitments that limit their ability to pursue more education. (“Latinos and Education: Explaining the Attainment Gap,” Pew Research Center, 2009)
The majority of youth enter foster care due to abuse, neglect, or homelessness, and many of these youth have been exposed to violence. These experiences leave a footprint on brain development that can lead to emotional and behavioral difficulties, including depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder.
Youth in foster care are more likely to perform lower on state assessments and on average miss twice the amount of school within one academic calendar year compared to their biologically reared counterparts. 33% of students in foster care have failed a grade or have been retained in school.
Research has shown that youth in foster care experience a disproportionately higher rate of disciplinary referrals compared to biologically reared youth. Adolescents in foster care are on average twice as likely to have had an out-of-school suspension and are three times as likely to have been expelled compared to non-foster youth. (Somers, C.L., et al., “Academic Achievement Among a Sample of Youth in Foster Care: The Role of School Connectedness,” National Institute of Health, 2020)
More than a third (34%) of 17-18 year olds in foster care have experienced 5 or more school changes. More than half (54%) of the children who age out of foster care have one or more emotional disorders. (Fostering Great Ideas)
More than a decade of research has shown that students experiencing homelessness lag behind their peers in key educational outcomes including academic achievement in math and reading, attendance, and high school graduation.…These negative relationships persist even in years after students become housed with students who were previously homeless scoring lower on state tests and missing more days of school than students who never experienced homelessness. (Dhaliwal, T. and De Gregorio, S., “Improving how we identify and support students experiencing homelessness,” Brookings, 2022)
Homelessness has an impact on academic achievement that is over and above poverty. Students experiencing homelessness are also more likely to have disabilities. (“Common Questions,” SchoolHouse Connection)