The study used data from the 2009 Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) to measure and
describes the influence of salient student-level and school-level characteristics on
schooling outcomes. The district of interest has 79 elementary schools and 4,215
students in the grade level of interest (grade three). Questions that motivated the
Inquiry and helped to inform the study design include:
-Do urban, economically disadvantaged White students show different levels of
average achievement compared to urban, economically disadvantaged Minority
students?
-Do student- and school-level factors influencing student achievement vary
according to student race/ethnicity?
-What demographic factors influence academic outcomes of White students in an
impoverished urban setting? This focus is of interest because the achievement
gap for minorities is saturated in the literature, however not for economically
disadvantaged Whites.