| Donna Harris
University of Wisconsin
The influence of school contextual factors on the educational opportunities of Black students
FINAL REPORT:
This study reexamines the effects of race on track placement. Previous research has been limited by methodological and data concerns: principally being the indicator used to measure academic track placement and the use of tenth grade test scores as the proxy of prior achievement. In addition, single-level analyses have not considered whether the relationship between race and academic track placement has been affected by school-level factors. That is, are the relative odds of academic track placement decreased or increased in specific school settings. This analysis adjusts for these limitations by using teacher reports of academic track placement, eighth grade composite test scores, and a multi-level analysis.
The three major questions addressed in this analysis are: (1) Do school contextual and organizational factors influence the academic track placement opportunities of Black students relative to White students? (2) To what extent do student versus teacher reports of academic track placement influence the student and school-level effects on academic track placement? (3) To what extent does the use of eighth versus tenth grade achievement influence the estimates of student and school-level effects on academic track placement?
The results from this study show that net of prior achievement and socioeconomic background, Black students are disadvantaged regarding academic track placement when both teacher reports of academic track placement and eighth grade achievement are used. These findings strongly suggest that student self-reports of academic track placement and the use of tenth grade achievement have limited previous research examining the effects of race on track placement by inflating the estimates of the Black student advantage. I also found that the relative odds of academic track placement for Black students do not significantly differ across schools, but there are school contexts where the odds of academic track placement of Blacks relative to Whites are increased or decreased. For example, the results of this study show that in schools where the difference in 8th grade composite test scores of White and Black students is large, Black students' chances of academic track placement relative to those of White students are decreased. In addition, the results from this study show that the relative odds of academic track significantly vary across schools for any student. Therefore, the odds of academic track placement can be affected by different school contexts. The results of this study suggest that we cannot consider the race effects found of previous research to be accurate estimates of track placement opportunities. As a result of this analysis, researchers must seriously consider these limitations before pursuing future studies in this area.
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