Gains in sophomore performance were unequal: about one in five Latino and Black young men were off-track at the end of sophomore year¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2020 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2025: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? In the 2016-17 freshman cohort, 21 percent of Latino young men and 22 percent of Black young men were off-track at the end of sophomore year, and only 30 and 20 percent respectively earned a GPA of 3.0 or higher. → Seeskin 2020
Evidence¶
Seeskin 2020¶
Seeskin, A., Mahaffie, S., & Usher, A. (2020). The forgotten year: Applying lessons from Freshman success to Sophomore year. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/the-forgotten-year
q2 · i? · associational · r2
Disaggregated cohort analysis (Figure 16) shows sophomore gains "have not been experienced equally by all groups of students": "21 percent of Latino young men and 22 percent of Black young men" were off-track, and only 30 and 20 percent respectively earned a 3.0 or higher GPA.
"21 percent of Latino young men and 22 percent of Black young men in the 2016–17 freshman cohort were off-track at the end of sophomore year"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- High- and middle-achieving Black students saw core GPA declines at least twice as large as White peers with similar eighth-grade GPAs — related
- Freshman OnTrack rates improved most among the highest-risk students, including Black and Latinx young men and the lowest-achieving entrants — related
- Patterns of GPA decline varied widely across high schools, suggesting school environment plays an important role in the transition — related
- Sophomore OnTrack rose from 61 to 85 percent and predicts graduation, but 30 percent of non-graduates were on-track as sophomores — related
- By the end of sophomore year, 84 percent of eventual non-graduates showed at least one warning indicator — related
- Student performance declines from freshman to sophomore year, with course failures rising in every subject and attendance declining sharply — related
- Projected bachelor's degree attainment is far lower for Black and Latino young men (10 and 14 percent) than the CPS district average of 20 percent — related
- Bachelor's DAI varies sharply by race/ethnicity and gender: Black and Latino young men are projected at 10 and 13 percent versus a 19 percent district average — related
- The rise in diploma earning came from declining dropout rates, which fell from 35 to 11 percent, not from declines in other outcomes — related
- Graduation rates improved for all racial, ethnic, and economic groups, but racial and ethnic gaps increased while gender, poverty, and disability gaps declined — related
- On-track improvements were accompanied by across-the-board grade gains, not grade inflation from turning Fs into Ds — related
- Graduation rates by age 19 in Chicago varied substantially by race/ethnicity and gender, with African-American boys lowest (39 percent) and Asian girls highest (85 percent) — related
- Students off track after ninth grade are less than half as likely to graduate, with Black and Latino students 46% and 31% more likely than the national average to be off track in 2022 — related
- Black and Hispanic students attained postsecondary readiness and success outcomes at substantially lower rates than White students — related
- Black and Latinx students were less likely than their peers to be in the On-Track category, and within each race/ethnicity group boys were less likely to be on-track than girls — related
- College completion among immediate enrollees in the CPS class of 2015 shows large race/ethnicity and gender gaps, with fewer than a third of Black and Latino young men completing a bachelor's degree — related
- Among students initially on-track, being male, Black, or Hispanic and attending higher-FRPL schools predict higher odds of falling off track in math — related
- Four- versus six-year completion gaps of 15–25 percentage points appeared across academic and demographic groups, with Black young men at 13% four-year and 31% six-year completion — related
- At-risk identification is demographically patterned, with Black, Hispanic, and male students more likely to be identified — related
- 71 percent of CCSD 8th graders were on track for graduation at the end of 9th grade in 2015/16 — related
- Students off track for graduation after ninth grade are less than half as likely to graduate than their on-track peers — related
- Class of 1997 outcomes differed by gender, with girls graduating at higher counts than boys within five years — related
- In the decade or so to 2017, Chicago Public Schools saw large rises in freshman on-track rates (2006 to 2017), graduation, and college enrollment, with the greatest on-track increases among Black and Latino males — related
- Georgia State's GPS Advising paired prediction with advising capacity and retention grants, and its strongest reported outcome was narrowed equity gaps rather than prediction accuracy — related
- Grade-class membership relates to grade distributions, with failing-poor ratios rising sharply across the five lowest-to-highest Alpha classes — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
sophomore-gains-unequal-by-race-gender |
title |
Gains in sophomore performance were unequal: about one in five Latino and Black young men were off-track at the end of sophomore year |
description |
Gains in sophomore performance were unequal: about one in five Latino and Black young men were off-track at the end of sophomore year |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2020 |
recheck_by |
2025 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-08 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — seeskin-2020 |
Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.