Educational Achievement

By 1852, states began establishing compulsory attendance laws requiring children within specific age ranges to attend school. All states had established compulsory attendance laws by 1929. Although all children were required to attend school, the schools were racially segregated. It was during this time that educators began noting disparities in academic achievement among different racial-ethnic groups.

The most glaring disparity was the significantly lower achievement of black students compared to white students. Educators argued that having racially segregated schools contributed to this disparity because the schools that black students attended were inferior (in buildings and textbooks) to the schools that white students attended. Given this concern, the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954, 1955) required all schools to desegregate with all deliberate speed. Despite integration efforts, disparities in achievement between white and black students not only persisted, but similar disparities between other racial-ethnic groups also emerged.

While academic performance in all content areas is important, educators and scholars have prioritized student performance in reading and math because they are foundational skills that all students need to be successful in schools. Given the importance of reading and math skills, identifying and addressing the differences in performance across racial/ethnic groups became a major priority. Therefore, to better understand the academic performance of all students, the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) began conducting a National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) during the 1970s.

The purpose of the NAEP is to assess the academic performance of a nationally representative sample of students in 4th, 8th, and 12th grade across a range of subject areas to obtain a national picture of academic performance.

NCES reports the performance data for each of five racial-ethnic groups: black, white, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, [Page 753]and Hispanic. To provide a historical context for reading and math achievement across these five racial/ethnic groups, the achievement data is organized approximately by decade depending on the years of testing. It is important to note that NCES did not collect data for all racial/ethnic groups for all years of the assessment. Hence, reading results are available for white and African American students since 1971 and for Hispanic students since 1975. Results for the remaining racial-ethnic groups are available beginning in 1980. Math results are available for all groups since 1978 with the exception of American Indian or Alaska Native; this is again due to insufficient sample sizes that do not permit reliable results.