Are schools that feature strong test scores highly effective, or do they mostly enroll students who are already well-prepared for success? A study co-authored by MIT scholars concludes that widely disseminated school quality ratings reflect the preparation and family background of their students as much or more than a school鈥檚 contribution to learning gains.
Indeed, the study finds that many schools that receive relatively low ratings perform better than these ratings would imply. Conventional ratings, the research makes clear, are highly correlated with race. Specifically, many published school ratings are highly positively correlated with the share of the student body that is white.
鈥淎 school鈥檚 average outcomes reflect, to some extent, the demographic mix of the population it serves,鈥 says MIT economist Josh Angrist, a Nobel Prize winner who has long analyzed education outcomes. Angrist is co-author of a newly published paper detailing the study鈥檚 results.
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