Systematic racial, ethnic and gender differences in grades persist among students with the same test scores, attendance, courses and teachers¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r3 · q3
Currency · newest study 2016 · checked against its sources 2026-10-16 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Net of controls, Black and Latino students receive lower grades than White students (by 0.26 and 0.12 GPA points) and Asian students higher (by 0.26 points); boys receive about half a grade point lower than girls (0.31 after attendance controls). → Elaine M. Allensworth and Stuart Luppescu 2016

Evidence¶

Elaine M. Allensworth and Stuart Luppescu 2016¶

Elaine M. Allensworth and Stuart Luppescu. (2016). Why do students get good grades, or bad ones? The influence of the teacher, class, school, and student. University of Chicago Consortium on School Research working paper. https://consortium.uchicago.edu

q3 · i? · associational · r3

Coefficients from Model 5a on the CPS grade dataset show these differences exist controlling for test scores, economic status, class type, school, and skills relative to classroom peers; attendance explains about one-third of the Asian difference, about 14 percent of the Black difference, and none of the Latino difference.

"On average, Black and Latino students get lower grades than White students (by 0.26 and 0.12 GPA points, respectively), while Asian students get higher grades (by 0.26 points)."

Studies bearing on this claim¶

Do girls and boys with the same test scores earn the same grades, and does a test score predict each group's later performance equally well? This table gathers the studies behind this claim and the 14 narrower claims that bear on it: 5 distinct studies (4 associational, 1 theoretical), q2–q3, 0 of 5 with an effect size coded. One row per study, codes as each entry records them; no effect is averaged and no verdict is drawn. Built by scripts/synthesize_claim.py from eval/synthesis/; a row that looks wrong is fixed on the claim it comes from.

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Gender — predictor: outcomes differ by group: a gap reflecting circumstances and treatment, not a cause
• Race and Ethnicity — predictor: outcomes differ by group: a gap reflecting circumstances and treatment, not a cause

Related Claims¶

• A very demanding course schedule lowers core-course GPA by about 0.40 points relative to an undemanding one — related
• Ninth-grade GPAs varied substantially by gender, race/ethnicity, neighborhood SES, incoming test scores, course level, and school — related
• Gender differences in ninth-grade math grades were similar across racial/ethnic groups, with young men earning fewer points in every group — related
• Prior achievement, attendance, and suspensions do not explain the gender difference in ninth-grade math grades — related
• Gender differences in assessment points earned remained small but statistically significant after controlling for math course type and level — related
• Among students with the same high grades, ACT scores differ substantially by race/ethnicity, a pattern the report flags as possible racial bias — related
• Attending a selective exam-entry high school yields no significant academic benefits and lowers 11th-grade GPA relative to observationally similar peers elsewhere — related
• Payne argues that color-blind ideology in schools precludes discussion of how outcomes and privilege are distributed by race — related
• Race, ethnicity, and class affect teacher perceptions and teacher behavior, including persistence with struggling students — related
• Validity evidence for the IRLA is disaggregated across grade, program, and race/ethnicity — related
• Student test effort differs substantially across student gender and racial subgroups — related
• ACT scores show significant subgroup misprediction by race, ethnicity, and gender that HSGPA models do not, and school-level variance is smaller among students with the same ACT score than the same HSGPA — related
• Prior gateway course success rates averaged 66 percent with a 14-point gap for students of color — related
• Teacher-perpetuated racial or ethnic discrimination in math classrooms is associated with worse engagement, grades, and test scores for all students — related
• The peer assessment effect size is comparable in magnitude to a substantial fraction of measured achievement gaps in the course — related
• Latino girls reported higher belonging and achievement than boys, and Latino subgroup and parent-education differences emerged in the sixth grade — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• In one study summarised in a policy brief, students and teachers who learned their commonalities through getting-to-know-you surveys reported more positive relationships, students earned higher grades, and achievement gaps for Black and Latinx students closed by more than 60% — related
• Students earned higher average grades in CS courses than in core courses, with few failing CS — related
• Student self-reports of effort, social well-being, and math instruction do not explain the gender grade difference — related
• Young women outperformed young men in every grading category family in unweighted points, with the largest gap in assignments and smallest in assessments; weighting reversed this ordering — related
• The GPA advantage of high-use tutoring visitors held across math SAT score, high school GPA, ethnicity, and first-generation status — related
• Teacher-assigned grades are susceptible to systematic biases, including halo effects and ethnicity-based grading differences (review-reported) — related