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Sources of Inequality Research:

Can Universal Screening Increase The Representation Of Low Income and Minority Students In Gifted Education

The NBER or the National Bureau of Economic Research is a nonprofit organization, that focuses on examining in great detail economic growth of occurring problems in the U.S. In the article “Can Universal Screening Increase the Representation of Low Income and Minority Students in Gifted Education” by the National Bureau of Economic research, authors David Card and Laura Giuliano believe that low income and minority families are under represented in schools gifted education courses. The authors address one occurring problem with theses tests that is whether or not these minority students are being over looked by the system. Teacher and parent referrals would be acknowledge by comprehensive screening programs being introduced into school districts today. The screening tests that school districts are beginning to implement, tests students on a variety of different characteristics to see whether or not they qualify and will succeed in the gifted education programs. One issue that the new screening tests would fix compared to the older referrals is the fact that non-English speaking students are over looked because of their lack of parental referrals due to the language barrier. When these tests were implemented on a small scale the statistics showed an increase in Hispanic students by 130 percent, and the number of black students increased by 80 percent. These statistics indicate that there are little to no consequences for minorities when these tests that are being implemented. In conclusion the authors suggest that the issues found in the gifted educational programs can be fixed by the comprehensive screenings that executives are beginning to establish in modern school districts today.

Early Life Environment and Racial Inequality in Education and Earnings in The United States

One of the major research themes in the National Bureau of Economic research is sources of inequality. Kenneth Y. Chay, Jonathan Guryan, and Bhashkar Mazumder conducted a study in which they analyzed the substantial gaps in test scores on the AFQT and NAEP tests among black-white cohorts. The National Bureau of Economic Research published an article titled “Early Life Environment and Racial Inequality in Education and Earnings in The United States” to eliminate any possible biases in Chay, Guryan and Mazumders’ previous analysis and address the primary caveats.

The National Bureau of Economic Research uses the term "gains" to reflect improvement in racial convergence. Prior studies have concluded black gains in AFQT and NAEP scores in the early 1980s, black gains in college enrollment in the mid-1980s, and black gains in earnings throughout the 1990s. It is concluded that black gains were centered among cohorts of blacks born in the South during the 1960s and 70s; therefore, not only is the study geographically exclusive, but data is also inconsistent with the contemporary causes in the 1980s and 1990s. These results would rather be indicating that black gains in the 1990s were influenced by the Civil Rights and War on Poverty periods (25-30 years before the 1990s).

With response to the education gap, new findings show that the cross-cohort gains in college enrollment only pertained to blacks born in the South (there were no relative gains for black in the North). New findings also show that gains in relative earnings are limited to blacks born in the 1965 to 1972 cohorts (ages 28-35 in 2002) and show no gains for other age groups. To conclude, the findings of this updated study indicate that racial gains are due primarily in part to birth date and birthplace.

Racial Inequality in the 21st Century: The Declining Significance of Discrimination

The National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed the hindrances in quality of education of black and Hispanic students compared to the education of white students, the causes for black students to fall behind in the classroom faster that white students, as well as the attempts to fix these gaps in education between races. The most common factors contributing to racial gaps are thought to be “discrimination, culture, and genetics,” among others. The first study in the article concluded that the best way to eliminate racial inequality in the future, specifically with income inequality, would be to provide black and white students with the same skills. The next study indicates that white children show a higher level of education than black students as young as two years old. Possible explanations for this are that the older children are tested differently than younger children, which could have more to do with what the child has observed throughout the years than what they are innately capable of, that there are racial differences in the rates in which children develop, and that genes and environmental influences also come into play. The third study demonstrates that the inherent deviation in education in children before they enter school depends on their parental environment. Similarly, the fourth study concludes that intervention programs before children enter schools still need a lot of work and are beneficial in some ways, but ultimately do not close the gap in education between black and white students. The fifth study looks at children from kindergarten to 12^th grade, finding that there is an education gap present, but it isn’t clear where it is most present. However, the next study about exclusively high school students shows that eighth grade test scores specifically play a key role in the growing gap between high school students and their graduation rates. The seventh study analyzes the effect of intervention programs on students once they have entered school, and indicates that improvement within schools and teaching alone can positively affect the achievement of black students and make them more comparable to that of white students. The entire NBER article ultimately concludes that we still do not know how to close the achievement gap because of the present color line, but there are certainly ways to increase individual student achievement that may eventually make schools more productive overall.

Public Universities, Equal Opportunity, and the Legacy of Jim Crow: Evidence from North Carolina

This study is a part of the NBER Working Paper Series, meaning it does not undergo the same peer and NBER board review as their regular research. Using data from the University of North Carolina system, which encompasses all public colleges in the state, the study looks at racial inequality at the collegiate level in regards to enrollment, completion, and various achievements, and the causation of such inequity. The study also mentions historically black colleges in North Carolina, and briefly questions whether they remain a positive contribution in contemporary America, arguing that they were a reaction to Jim Crow laws and tend to isolate African-American students from other racial groups.

Controlling for test scores, majors, and other scholastic factors, the study looks at administrative data from North Carolina K-12 public schools of eighth graders both in 1999 and 2004, categorized both by race and socioeconomic standing. It then tracks these students through their expected graduation dates of both high school and college, given they continued to a North Carolina university, and they examined whatever racial stratification occured within those time periods based on enrollment and graduation rates at each university.

The study found that African-Americans in the North Carolina public school system are greatly disadvantaged. In one group, controlling for gender, the study found that, of the 2004 eighth graders, African-American students were 4.6% less likely to attend a North Carolina university than their white peers, and “5.5 percentage points less likely to enroll and graduate within four years.” However, when controlling for parental higher education and eighth grade tests scores, the study found that African-American students of the aforementioned grouping are more likely to attend and graduate within four years from a North Carolina university, which the study attributes to the abundance of historically black colleges in the state.