Solución de Controversias

In 1994, Robert W. Lissitz publishes the results of a four year study on the school desegregation efforts and student achievement of black St. Louis public school students. He collects data on students in the fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth grades, approximately 11,000 students each year. These four groups of students are classified as integrated, nonintegrated, magnet, or suburban. He identifies integrated students as students who attend an integrated school in the City of St. Louis. Nonintegrated students attend a school that is not integrated in the City of St. Louis. Magnet students attend one of the magnet schools in the City of St. Louis. Suburban students attend school in one of the sixteen suburban school districts that participated in the transfer program during his study.

The dependent variable consists of test scores from the mathematical and reading sections of the Stanford Achievement Test and a writing activity. Lissitz also uses data on prior student performance on the CTB/McGraw-Hill California Achievement Test and the Cognitive Abilities Test in order to adjust for performance on the achievement tests and to adjust for initial differences that have nothing to do with a student’s participation or exposure to the desegregation program. The independent variables cover student demography and student opinions on educational experiences. For example, he takes an attitude survey of the students to collect demographic information on each student’s personal beliefs about school personnel, peers, work habit, educational effort, and support at home. Lissitiz considers the correlation of achievement, attitude, and duration in the program to measure the relationship between student performance and duration. He replicates this data collection process from 1991 to 1994, producing and accumulating results each time. Lissitz performs a series of

analysis of covariance tests to assess this data. Then, he takes the results of two sets of cross- sectional analysis and creates a longitudinal analysis from his findings.

In the first year (1991), Lissitz finds several promising results. Prior achievement test data indicate that magnet school students are the highest performers of all the classified student groups. While certain prior achievement tests provide more explanation for student achievement before the study time frame, all tests are statistically significant regardless of sample size. In this respect, prior achievement may not necessarily have a huge impact. However, magnet students who are always high performers remain high performers on the Stanford Achievement Test. Some nonintegrated and integrated students, when adjusting for prior achievement, do meet the achievement level of magnet students. Further investigation is crucial to identify if and how this is an exception. In looking at tenth grade students, most student achievement plateaus, however, the suburban (transfer) students show high progress in comparison to the other three student classifications.

The second year (1992) of data collection involves a second group of students. Since the data collection is every other year, there are two sets of longitudinal data, one for students in years 1991 and 1993 and another for students in years 1992 and 1994. Based on the prior achievement of the second group, both suburban and magnet students tend to have higher test scores in comparison to nonintegrated and integrated students. However, magnet students still have higher average test scores than the transfer students. Transfer student scores on the Stanford Achievement Test are similar to the nonintegrated and integrated students in fourth, sixth, and eighth grade with all three lower than magnet students. However, as before, tenth grade transfer student performance increases in tenth grade to magnet student level when adjusting for prior achievement. Lissitz does not find a verifiable relationship between

student achievement and duration. This is probably because there is not enough consistent evidence since it is the first assessment of the second set of students. At this point Lissitz there are two separate cross-sectional studies on two separate sets of students.

In the third year (1993), Lissitz is able to do his first longitudinal assessment. The 1991 fourth graders are sixth graders, the 1991 sixth graders are eighth graders, and the 1991 eighth graders are tenth graders. There is a new group of fourth graders. Lissitz uses

improvement points to show the change in student growth on the Stanford Achievement Test between the two years. For example, from sixth to eighth grades, magnet students receive 33 improvement points, transfers receive 27 improvement points, integrated receive 22

improvement points, and nonintegrated receive 19 improvement points. Magnet students are the highest performing student group. Transfer students show growth over the two years while magnet students’ scores plateau and sometimes lower; however, magnet students remain the highest performing student group. Lissitz’s overall conclusion confirms his assertion in the first year. As a transfer student moves into a higher grade, one can expect his or her achievement score to increase, whereas a magnet student’s score will remain high but steady. Therefore, a transfer student can possibly attain a magnet student’s achievement score by the end of their education.

The last year (1994) is the second year of data collection for the second group. Like the previous three years, magnet students outperform the other three groups of students. Based on the achievement test scores, transfer, integrated, and nonintegrated students perform the same in fourth, sixth, and eighth grades. The nonintegrated students show the highest mean change in reading tests from fourth to sixth grade, but show the lowest

math from sixth to eighth grade. Overall, writing scores decrease for magnets. From grades eight to ten, transfer students significantly improve in reading and math (higher than the integrated and nonintegrated), but not significantly different from the magnets. This may be due to the low level of achievement transfers have during sixth to eighth grade and the decline in magnet writing scores. It may also identify the presence of weaknesses in higher grade level education offered in the City of St. Louis.

Overall, Lissitz finds no difference between doing a single cross-sectional analysis for each year versus doing the longitudinal analysis for the two sets of student groups. His main interest is to see if the 1994 fourth graders outperform the 1991 fourth graders, and the same applies for the other grade levels. For transfer students, and total students combined, this did not occur. Students did much worse overtime, especially in the writing assessment. The mathematics and reading section performance on the Stanford Achievement Test remains the same across grades for all four years. Based on interviews with personnel, Lissitz finds the same achievement performance occurs with white students. Therefore, this becomes more of a reflection of education within the metro area and not particular to black integration.

Lissitz’s analysis finds three trends with the students’ exposure to the student transfer program: high achievement of high school transfer students, parallels of the achievement gap in suburban and city schools, and high achievement of city transfer students in comparison to city non-transfer students. Even though the magnet school students are the highest

performers in lower grade levels, over the years their achievement scores plateau whereas the high school transfer students continually increase their scores. In his concluding remarks, Lissitz claims African American students did not fare as well as individuals hoped upon

implementation of the desegregation program since test scores are not improving at each grade level overtime.

There are strengths and weaknesses to Lissitz’s study. Most flaws are evident in the duration of the study and student response rates. One, this study compares two sets of students for two years: the first set in years 1991 and 1993, and the second set in the years 1992 and 1994. While two years can show a trend, it is not a substantial enough time frame. For the four years to show a better trend, all the grade levels during all four years are

preferred. This provides two additional years of data for each student, making this a study that spans four consecutive years. Two, student response rates lower each year, which means there are missing data for students. Three, while missing data can be attributed to some non-crucial forms of error, the increase in missing data over the span of this study is for comparing years. If a student is too low of a performer, he or she does not have to take the assessment. Lissitz also excludes special education students, who are disproportionately African American. Therefore, there is a group of students who potentially have different results for the integrated, nonintegrated, and suburban students who are not included in this