(September 30, 2015) The answer appears to be yes. Schooling plays a surprisingly
large role in short-changing the nation’s most economically disadvantaged
students of critical math skills, according to a study published today in
Educational Researcher, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational
Research Association.
Findings from the study indicate that unequal access to
rigorous mathematics content is widening the gap in performance on a prominent
international math literacy test between low- and high-income students, not
only in the United States but in countries worldwide.
Using data from the 2012 Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA), conducted by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), researchers from Michigan State University
and OECD confirmed not only that low-income students are more likely to be
exposed to weaker math content in schools, but also that a substantial share of
the gap in math performance between economically advantaged and disadvantaged
students is related to those curricular inequalities.
The authors—William H. Schmidt, Nathan Burroughs, and
Richard Houang, all of Michigan State University, and Pablo Zoido, of
OECD—found that in almost every one of the 62 countries examined, including the
United States, a significant amount was added to the social class-related
performance gap because of what students studied in schools. The 2012 PISA was
the first international study to include student-level indicators of exposure
to math content. The authors relied on data from more than 300,000 students,
who ranged in age from 15 years and 3 months to 16 years and 2 months.
“Our findings support previous research by showing that
affluent students are consistently provided with greater opportunity to learn
more rigorous content, and that students who are exposed to higher-level math
have a better ability to apply it to addressing real-world situations of
contemporary adult life, such as calculating interest, discounts, and
estimating the required amount of carpeting for a room,” said Schmidt, a
University Distinguished Professor of Statistics and Education at Michigan
State University. “But now we know just how important content inequality is in
contributing to performance gaps between privileged and underprivileged
students.”