Search

This volume focuses on the importance of state policy for ensuring equity in postsecondary access, achievement, and attainment. America has a federalist system of education that gives states significant autonomy in their governance of schools, colleges, and universities. This system has created significant variation across states; variation that provides opportunities for state governments to learn from one another. This volume underscores the importance of context and uses differentiation across state lines to highlight the roles internal and external factors play in policy development and issues pertaining to postsecondary access, achievement, and attainment. This collection of papers includes a diverse set of theoretical and methodological approaches to address a range of topics that makes clear the scope and importance of a multitude of state policies. This volume will serve as a source of new information regarding state policies that will be useful for policymakers and researchers alike. It is also suggests important new avenues for research that focus on theoretical and methodological considerations as well as topical areas including funding, accountability, transparency, and policy framing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effects of digital inequality in conjunction with curricular tracking on academic achievement. Capitalizing on an original survey administered to seniors (fourth-year secondary school students), our survey data (N = 972) come from a large American public high school with a predominantly disadvantaged student body. The school’s elective tracking system and inadequate digital resources make for an excellent case study of the effects of a differentiated curriculum and digital inequalities on academic achievement. Multilevel random-effects and fixed-effects regression models applied to the survey data reveal the important role played by digital inequalities in shaping academic achievement as measured by GPA. As the models establish, academic achievement is positively correlated with both duration of digital experience and usage intensity regarding academically useful computing activities, even when students’ curricular and class placement are taken into account. In contrast, both leisure computing and smartphone usage are negatively correlated with academic achievement as measured by GPA. Also with regard to GPA, findings show that students in the higher curricular tracks benefit more from longer durations of digital experience than do students in lower curricular tracks. These results underscore the importance of focusing attention on the ways in which digital inequalities combine with curricular tracking in shaping academic achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this analysis, I evaluate how socioeconomic status (SES) directly shapes the probability that students with similar academic achievements complete key transitions in the U.S. postsecondary system. I develop the concept of institutional reach to illuminate the maintenance of socioeconomic differences across successive forward transitions via institutions of varying selectivity in this postsecondary system. Both low- and high-SES students with high academic achievements display a greater probability of moving forward through the system. However, high-SES students are more likely to do so by attending more selective institutions at entry and, consequently, are more likely to complete a bachelor's degree at such institutions. In other words, high-SES students have greater institutional reach given similar academic achievements. Greater protection from low achievements and greater boosts from high achievements are both important for maintaining high-SES students' advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses various notions of merit in higher education in the United States. Definition of merit in academic communities; Merit as a cultural lens; Basic points about merit; Issues surrounding academic merit and affirmative action in the admissions process.