Editor’s note: This podcast is part of an ongoing experiment utilizing AI technology to make academic research and complex ideas more accessible to a wider audience. The content of each episode is rooted in a carefully chosen article (or articles), which it then adapts into a conversational format to make the ideas more approachable. While the format is AI-generated, the core content is selected and shaped by the research.
This podcast explores the persistent black-white achievement gap in education. While black students may enter kindergarten with comparable skills to their white counterparts, the gap widens as they progress through school.
This episode examines potential explanations for this trend, including differences in school quality and the impact of social and economic factors. Studies show that while factors like socioeconomic status can be controlled for at the kindergarten level, black students may still attend lower-quality schools on average, contributing to the widening gap.
We'll also briefly discuss potential solutions, including policy interventions and educational reforms, with the goal of understanding how to create a more equitable educational system.
Sources
Dobbie, Will, and Roland G. Fryer, Jr. “Are High-Quality Schools Enough to Increase Achievement? Evidence from a Social Experiment in Harlem.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, vol. 4, no. 4, 2011, pp. 121-39.
Dobbie, Will, and Roland G. Fryer, Jr. "Getting Beneath the Veil of Effective Schools: Evidence from New York City." NBER Working Paper, no. 17632, 2011.
Dobbie, Will, and Roland G. Fryer, Jr. "The Impact of Attending a High-Achievement Charter School on College Enrollment: Evidence from the Harlem Children’s Zone." Unpublished manuscript, Harvard University, 2015.
Fryer, Roland G., Jr. "Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials." Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 126, no. 4, 2011, pp. 1755-98.
Fryer, Roland G., Jr., and Steven D. Levitt. “The Black-White Test Score Gap through Third Grade.” American Law and Economics Review, vol. 8, no. 2, 2006, pp. 249-81.
Fryer, Roland G., Jr, and Paul Torelli. "An Empirical Analysis of 'Acting White'." NBER Working Paper, no. 11334, 2005.
Fryer, Roland G., Jr., Steven D. Levitt, John List, and Sally Sadoff. "Enhancing the Efficacy of Teacher Incentives through Loss Aversion: A Field Experiment." NBER Working Paper, no. 18237, 2012.
Fryer, Roland G., Jr. "Injecting Successful Charter School Strategies into Traditional Public Schools: Early Results from an Experiment in Houston." Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 129, no. 3, 2014, pp. 1355-407.
Reardon, Sean F. "The Widening Academic Achievement Gap Between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations." In Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children's Life Chances, edited by Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane, 91-115. Russell Sage Foundation, 2011.
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