[gov2001-l] Abstract: It is Not About Race

Hi all, Below is our preliminary abstract. We were not sure how to refer to the article/authors in the subheading. We welcome comments and criticism. Thanks, Elena & Omar ################ It?s Not About Race: Confirming Fryer and Levitt's Understanding of the Black-White Test Score Gap Upon School Entry Although more than half a century has passed since the landmark Brown v. Board of Ed. decision, black children continue to lag academically behind their white peers. For decades, research comparing the test scores of black and white students has consistently found a substantial gap, even among four-year olds. Fryer and Levitt (2004), using a new nationally representative data set, found that the test score disparity among Kindergarteners almost entirely disappears after controlling for a small set of socio-economic, family and health related characteristics. If robust, this exceptional finding would suggest that black-white differences in testing are neither innate nor insoluble. In this article we demonstrate that the results are not sensitive to model specification, different treatments of missing data, or weights. The gap evident in later years is not present when children enter school.