Schooling has a compensatory effect on inequality in reading, language, and science skills¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r? · q2
Currency · newest study 2021 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Seasonal comparisons of national assessment data indicate that skill inequality in reading, language use, and science grows more slowly during school years than summers, consistent with a compensatory effect of schooling. → Dennis Condron 2021

Evidence¶

Dennis Condron 2021¶

Dennis Condron, Douglas Downery, Megan Kuhfeld. (2021). Schools as refractors: Change in variance in children's cognitive skills change while in school versus out. Sociology of Education, 94(4), 316-340. https://journals.sagepub.com/home/soe doi:10.1177/00380407211041542

q2 · i? · causal · r?

The study analyzes recent national data on U.S. public school students from the NWEA MAP Growth assessment using seasonal comparisons across numerous grade levels; the abstract reports that "schooling has a compensatory effect on inequality in reading, language, and science skills". No effect size is printed in the available text.

"Our results suggest that schooling has a compensatory effect on inequality in reading, language, and science skills but not math skills."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Oral Language — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Schooling does not show a compensatory effect on math skill inequality — related
• Seasonal comparisons can test whether schooling exacerbates, reduces, or reproduces overall skill inequality — a broader claim this one bears on
• Black-White achievement gaps widen during school periods and shrink during summers among kindergarten through eighth-grade students — related
• Intensive remediation alone will not meet students' needs and, if segregating and stigmatizing, can deepen inequality and trauma — related
• Seasonal patterns are discrepant across national data sets — related