The Hispanic-Asian achievement gap in elementary school : a persistent disparity

Dissertation approved by the University of Maryland, 2012. There is little research of Hispanic and Asian children's educational outcomes; in particular, the achievement gap between these two racial/ethnic groups has not been fully explored. The objective of this investigation is to analyze the Hispanic-Asian achievement gap in elementary school using the ECLS-K, a longitudinal nationally representative study. I provide detailed descriptive analysis of the trajectory of the gap from kindergarten to fifth grade. Analysis is conducted using three approaches. First, I estimated the mean achievement gap in elementary school and the relative contribution of family, school and teacher factors to the gap. Second, I decomposed the Hispanic-Asian gap into explained and unexplained parts due to observed differences. Finally, I explored whether the achievement gap is persistent across the conditional distribution of test scores. Reading and math scores are the outcome variables.