School District Income Seems to Mean Little to the Poor

Eugen G Tarnow  January 25 2017 06:50:15 PM

By Eugen Tarnow, Ph.D.
Avalon Business Systems, Inc.
http://AvalonAnalytics.com

I had a conversation with a school board member in a New Jersey district in which the mean family income is large but economically disadvantaged students do not do well.  I decided to see if this was a larger phenomenon.

Indeed it was.  For example, below is shown the grade 6 PARCC math scores as a function of district family income for all children (top) and for economically disadvantaged children (bottom).  There is a strong correlation between the math scores and the district family income in general (R square is 44%) but not for the poor (R square is only 2%).  

It is also interesting just how expensive it is to increase the average grade by 1 point: $5,000 in mean income!


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