On NCLB, Equal Educational Opportunity and
Closing Achievement Gaps1
Damian W. Betebenner
Center for Assessment
Dover, NH
CCSSO Large Scale Assessment Conference, June 18th, 2007
Paper available at http://monticello.bc.edu/Betebenner
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps
No Child Left Behind
Measuring EEOA
Equal Educational Outcomes
No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
NCLB performance mandates, embedded within state
accountability systems, are centrally focused on a school’s
percentage of students at or above proficient.
Universal proficiency mandates apply to numerous relevant
subgroups.
The result has been renewed attention on achievement gaps
and strategies for their reduction.
The mandate to close achievement gaps often goes avoids
critical examination. This paper/presentation seeks:
to ground the discussion of achievement gaps and their
amelioration within an explicit EEO framework; and
to put forward a morally compelling and quantifiable criterion
by which to judge whether achievement based EEO exists.
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps
Conceptions of EEO
Measuring EEOA
Equal Educational Outcomes
Equal Educational Opportunity (EEO)
What is the moral imperative to close achievement gaps? This
demand is built into NCLB but often goes unquestioned.
The most obvious ethical foundation upon which to base the
reduction of achievement gaps is Equal Educational
Opportunity. That is, the existence of achievement gaps is
symptomatic of a system lacking EEO.
Implicit within the gap closing accountability mandates of
NCLB is a very stringent notion of EEO that bears clarification.
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps
Conceptions of EEO
Measuring EEOA
Equal Educational Outcomes
Formalist versus Results Based Conceptions
Conceptions of EEO can roughly be divided into two groups:
formalist versus results-based
A formalist conception of EEO requires only the absence of
formal barriers to access—for example, de jure segregation.
Less stringent formalist conceptions call for equalizing various
inputs (e.g., the quality of teachers, library holdings, etc.)
Are formalist conceptions of EEO more aligned with
deterministic or stochastic models?
Formalist conceptions of EEO are currently out of favor. NCLB
has ushered an emphasis on outcomes/results.
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps
Conceptions of EEO
Measuring EEOA
Equal Educational Outcomes
Results Based Conceptions
Results-based conceptions of EEO employ educational
outcomes to ascertain whether EEO exists (e.g., achievement
test scores, graduation rates, etc.)
Results based conceptions different from formal approaches
in that they take into account the entering characteristics of
students.
Results-based conceptions of EEO differ in the extent to
which equality in outcomes must occur across the types of
educational results (e.g., what subjects) and within those
types (to what extent—equal scale scores versus equal
percentages above a threshold).
Strict equality of results both across and within types marks
the most demanding end of the continuum. A view which
nobody, to our knowledge, endorses.
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps
Conceptions of EEO
Measuring EEOA
Equal Educational Outcomes
Conditional versus Unconditional Thresholds
NCLB exemplifies a relatively strong results-based conception
of EEO, namely an unconditional threshold conception.
By 2014, without conditioning upon race, socio-economic
status, gender, or prior achievement, NCLB requires all
students perform at or above a state defined proficiency
threshold in reading, writing, mathematics, and science.
Though morally compelling, placing sole responsibility on
schools to fulfill these requirements is guaranteed to fail.
Our goal is to introduce a more rigorous measure of EEO
based upon a conditional threshold conception that better
illustrates (un)equal educational opportunity.
To avoid impoverishing EEO by looking only at test results, we
focus on an aspect of EEO manifest in achievement
data—Equal Educational Opportunity for Achievement (EEOA)
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction Achievement Gaps & EEO
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps EEOA and DIF
Measuring EEOA Opportunity for All or EEOA?
Equal Educational Outcomes Threshold Stringency and EEOA
Achievement Gaps and EEOA
The frequent use of achievement gaps belies their unsuitability for
inferences concerning EEOA
Girls Girls
Percent Proficient Percent Proficient
Boys Boys
Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 3 Grade 4
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction Achievement Gaps & EEO
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps EEOA and DIF
Measuring EEOA Opportunity for All or EEOA?
Equal Educational Outcomes Threshold Stringency and EEOA
Achievement Gaps and EEOA
If quantifying EEOA is the goal, how can one approach this task.
A reasonable criterion is that we have obtained educational
equity when representatives of different racial, gender, and
socioeconomic origins have about the same probabilities of
reaching different educational outcomes [Levin, 1994, p. 168].
This criterion is stochastic in nature. We modify Levin’s criterion
using conditional threshold conception of EEOA.
EEOA requires that representatives of different racial, gender,
and socioeconomic subgroups have equal chances of
reaching any academic proficiency threshold conditional upon
recent achievement.
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction Achievement Gaps & EEO
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps EEOA and DIF
Measuring EEOA Opportunity for All or EEOA?
Equal Educational Outcomes Threshold Stringency and EEOA
EEOA and DIF
Our notion of EEOA is very similar to DIF
Probability of Reaching Threshold
White
African
American
Achievement
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction Achievement Gaps & EEO
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps EEOA and DIF
Measuring EEOA Opportunity for All or EEOA?
Equal Educational Outcomes Threshold Stringency and EEOA
EEOA and DIF
Our notion of EEOA is very similar to DIF
Probability Ratio (White/African American)
of Reaching Proficiency Threshold
Achievement
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction Achievement Gaps & EEO
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps EEOA and DIF
Measuring EEOA Opportunity for All or EEOA?
Equal Educational Outcomes Threshold Stringency and EEOA
Estimation
Similar to DIF, logistic regression is used to estimate the
probability of reaching the performance threshold.
exp(b0 + b1 x + b2 g + b3 xg )
Pr(Y = 1 | X = x , G = g ) =
1 + exp(b0 + b1 x + b2 g + b3 xg )
Estimation is problematic because the dependent variable is
measured with error. That is, the discreet dependent variable is
subject to misclassification.
Recent advances in the analysis of additive measurement error
models allow for the estimation of the model parameters given
known misclassification probabilities [Küchenhoff et al., 2006,
Cook and Stefanski, 1994].
Estimation of model parameters was performed using the R
software language with the SIMEX
library [R Development Core Team, 2006].
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction Achievement Gaps & EEO
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps EEOA and DIF
Measuring EEOA Opportunity for All or EEOA?
Equal Educational Outcomes Threshold Stringency and EEOA
EEOA versus Opportunity for All
One must distinguish equality between groups from lack of
opportunity for all
Probability of Reaching Threshold
Acceptable
0.6 Region White
African
American
Achievement
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction Achievement Gaps & EEO
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps EEOA and DIF
Measuring EEOA Opportunity for All or EEOA?
Equal Educational Outcomes Threshold Stringency and EEOA
EEOA and Different Thresholds
Depending upon threshold stringency, different pictures of EEOA
emerge
Low Proficiency Threshold
Probability of Reaching Threshold
White
African
American
Achievement
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction Achievement Gaps & EEO
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps EEOA and DIF
Measuring EEOA Opportunity for All or EEOA?
Equal Educational Outcomes Threshold Stringency and EEOA
EEOA and Different Thresholds
Depending upon threshold stringency, different pictures of EEOA
emerge
Medium Proficiency Threshold
Probability of Reaching Threshold
White
African
American
Achievement
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction Achievement Gaps & EEO
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps EEOA and DIF
Measuring EEOA Opportunity for All or EEOA?
Equal Educational Outcomes Threshold Stringency and EEOA
EEOA and Different Thresholds
Depending upon threshold stringency, different pictures of EEOA
emerge
High Proficiency Threshold
Probability of Reaching Threshold
White
African
American
Achievement
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps
Two Criticisms
Measuring EEOA
Equal Educational Outcomes
Not Demanding Enough?
Two potential criticisms of EEOA are that it is not demanding
enough while another is that is it too demanding.
With regard to the former, it appears that EEOA, which
conditions upon prior achievement, fails to close achievement
gaps for groups differing at the outset.
An outcomes based conception of EEO requires “parity among
groups of individuals on all educational outcomes that affect an
individual’s chances to enjoy other social goods [Howe, 1989,
Equal probability for advanced, however, is not equivalent to
adding a fixed amount to regular intervals to each group’s
achievement score (i.e., equal treatment inputs).
We consider the education system as an ergodic stochastic
process. As such, EEOA implies that all groups will converge to
the same steady state.
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps
Two Criticisms
Measuring EEOA
Equal Educational Outcomes
Education as an Ergodic Social Process
A depiction of convergence to steady state given EEOA
Percent Proficient
40 Grade 1 Percentages:
African American: 35.00
White: 65.00
Grade 12 Percentages:
African American: 89.01
20 White: 93.20
Grade
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps
Two Criticisms
Measuring EEOA
Equal Educational Outcomes
Too Demanding?
Even after adjusting for prior achievement, we do not mean to
suggest that EEOA gaps are the “fault” of bad teachers or
schools.
The primary purpose of our analyses is not the uncover the
“blame worthy perpetrator” [Edley, 2006].
Lack of resources outside of school continue to diminish a
students chances for advancement even after adjustment for
prior achievement.
However, the gap is something that society in toto is
responsible for.
Our goal is to try and put as fine a point as possible on
achievement disparities and to help “marshal a consensus to
narrow [them]” [Edley, 2006].
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
Introduction
NCLB, EEO & Achievement Gaps
Two Criticisms
Measuring EEOA
Equal Educational Outcomes
References
Cook, J. R. and Stefanski, L. A. (1994).
Simulation-extrapolation estimation in parametric
measurement error models.
Journal of the American Statistical Association, 89:1314–1328.
Edley, C. (2006).
Educational “Opportunity" is the highest civil rights priority. so
what should researchers and lawyers do about it?
Retrieved June 22, 2006 from the World Wide Web: http:
//www.softconference.com/MEDIA/WMP/260407/#43.010.
Howe, K. R. (1989).
In defense of outcomes-based conceptions of equal
educational opportunity.
Educational Theory, 39(4):317–336.
Küchenhoff, H., Mwalili, S. M., and Lesaffre, E. (2006).
A general method for dealing with misclassification in
regression: The misclassification SIMEX.
Biometrics, 62:85–96.
Levin, H. M. (1994).
The necessary and sufficient conditions for achieving
educational equity.
In Berne, R. and Picus, L. O., editors, Outcome Equity in
Education. Corwin Press, Inc., Thousand Oaks, California.
R Development Core Team (2006).
R: A language and environment for statistical computing.
R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria.
D. Betebenner On Achievement Gaps and Equal Educational Opportunity
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On NCLB, Equal Educational Opportunity and Closing Achievement Gaps — CCSSO, June 2007.
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