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 in the group. At the individual level, many students may exhibit atypically high or low educational outcomes that differ from most members of their ethnic groups, but on aggregate, an achievement gap has been shown to exist between different ethnic groups in the United States.

In the United States, many facets of the achievement gap are contentious—its measurement, causes, consequences, and the educational policies proposed to reduce it. By providing multiple perspectives on the achievement gap, this entry examines the achievement gap and describes how it is both a product and a driver of educational policy in the United States. For simplicity, the Black-White achievement gap is the focus of this entry. However, similar extrapolations can be made for gaps between other ethnicities on opposing ends of the spectrum, such as the White-Hispanic achievement gap.