Achievement Gap

The term achievement gap is used to describe the disparities in educational outcomes between students of differing demographic characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, nationality, socio-economic status, and immigration status. For the purposes of this entry, the scope of the achievement gap is limited to K–12 students in the United States. On the lower end of the spectrum are African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and some Asian Americans (particularly immigrants from Southeast Asia such as Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians). Those at the upper end are mainly Whites and other Asian Americans (particularly Korean, Chinese, and Japanese Americans). The achievement gap is a phenomenon of averages. The persistence of the gap between ethnic groups does not imply that all students achieve at the same level as others ...