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Continuing efforts have been made in the United States (US) to examine the role of schooling in alleviating the ethnic/racial inequalities in student performance. Using the US data from the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), this study examines the between-school and within-school racial/ethnic differences in opportunities to learn (OTL) and their relationship to the corresponding differences in student mathematics achievement. In all models and for all types of students, OTL showed a significantly positive relationship to student mathematics achievement, and its effect size was about four times as large as the socioeconomic status (SES) effect. The results suggest the importance of OTL in alleviating the racial/ethnic inequalities in mathematics performance.

In this work, we explored the relationship of the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSSM) to student achievement. Building on techniques developed for the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), we found a very high degree of similarity between CCSSM and the standards of the highest-achieving nations on the 1995 TIMSS. A similar analysis revealed wide variation in the proximity of state standards in effect in 2009 to the CCSSM. Finally, we used regression and analysis of covariance techniques to assess the relationship between the proximity of a state's standards to the CCSSM and performance on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). After adjusting for cut-points on state assessments and controlling for state demographics related to socioeconomic status and poverty, we found that states with standards more like the CCSSM, on average, had higher NAEP scores. (Contains 1 note, 4 tables and 5 figures.)

This article utilizes the 1999 TIMSS-R data from U.S. states and districts to explore the consequences of variation in opportunities to learn specific mathematics content. Analyses explore the relationship between classroom mathematics content coverage and student achievement as measured by the TIMSS-R international mathematics scaled score. District/state-level socioeconomic status indicators demonstrated significant relationships with the dependent variable, mathematics achievement, and the classroom-level measure of content coverage. A three-level hierarchical linear model demonstrated a significant effect of classroom content coverage on achievement while controlling for student background at the student level and SES at all three levels documenting significant differences in mathematics learning opportunities as a function of the U.S. education system structure. (Contains 5 figures, 5 tables, and 6 notes.)

Efforts to promote academic achievement by increasing access to courses, especially in mathematics, may mask educational disparities if variations in curriculum are not also monitored. A multi-dimensional description of students' mathematics curricula during high school was obtained from analyses of surveys, transcripts, and textbooks collected for a nationally representative study of adolescents during the mid-1990s. Few gaps in the number of years or credits in mathematics coursework were found. However, the quantity and cognitive challenge of instructional materials in textbooks adopted for those courses differed significantly both across and within mathematics tracks. Differences in the quality of curriculum accumulating during high school were also related to parents' education level. Reducing such gaps in learning opportunities would require teachers to supplement adopted instructional materials to ensure that all students receive a high quality mathematics curriculum. (Contains 12 notes, 2 tables, and 2 figures.)

Employing data from a stratified random survey of newly certified teachers in Texas, we compare the mathematical content preparation of traditional teacher program graduates with graduates of alternative programs. We find that graduates of traditional programs have statistically significantly higher content preparation even when taking precollege preparation into account. These findings were consistent across different types of alternative programs. Alternatively certified teachers reported higher college entrance exam scores in mathematics, but this was statistically significant only for Grades 4 to 8. After merging survey results with NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) data about the schools at which teachers were employed, we found similar demographic characteristics between the two types of teachers—alternatively certified teachers were not more likely to teach in disadvantaged schools. Finally, while the content preparation of teachers was consistent across types of schools, teachers in disadvantaged schools tended to have lower SAT and ACT scores for both alternatively and traditionally prepared teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International comparative studies in education provide a fresh perspective on K-12 education policy by enabling countries to learn from each other's approaches. The recently conducted Teacher Education and Development Study-Mathematics provides a worldwide lens by which to examine the role of subject-matter in the preparation of US teachers of mathematics for primary and lower secondary students. More specifically, a previous study looking at the international top-performing teacher preparation programmes identified a common set of learning experiences (topics/content) related to mathematics. This empirically derived international benchmark is used in this paper to examine the quality of the mathematics preparation of future US teachers in various university and college programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, student-level indicators of opportunity to learn (OTL) included in the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment are used to explore the joint relationship of OTL and socioeconomic status (SES) to student mathematics literacy. Using multiple methods, we find consistent evidence that (a) OTL has a significant relationship to student outcomes, (b) a positive relationship exists between SES and OTL, and (c) roughly a third of the SES relationship to literacy is due to its association with OTL. These relationships hold across most countries and both within and between schools within countries. Our findings suggest that in most countries, the organization and policies defining content exposure may exacerbate educational inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]