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This article has been retrieved
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November 3, 2006
Volume 14 Number 28
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November 3, 2006
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ISSN 1068-2341
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School Size, Student Achievement, and the "Power Rating" of Poverty:
Substantive Finding or Statistical Artifact?
Theodore Coladarci
University of Maine
Citation: Coladarci, T. (2006). School size, student achievement, and the
"power rating" of poverty: Substantive finding or statistical artifact?
Education Policy Analysis Archives, 14(28). Retrieved [date] from
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v14n28/.
Abstract
The proportion of variance in student achievement that is explained by
student SES-"poverty's power rating," as some call it-tends to be lower
among smaller schools than among larger schools. Smaller schools, many
claim, are able to somehow disrupt the seemingly axiomatic association
between SES and student achievement. Using eighth-grade data for 216 public
schools in Maine, I explored the hypothesis that this in part is a
statistical artifact of the greater volatility (lower reliability) of
school-aggregated student achievement in smaller schools. This hypothesis
received no support when reading achievement served as the dependent
variable. In contrast, the hypothesis was supported when the dependent
variable was mathematics achievement. For reasons considered in the
discussion, however, I ultimately concluded that the latter results are
insufficient to affirm the statistical-artifact hypothesis here as well.
Implications for subsequent research are discussed.
Keywords: small schools; student achievement; socioeconomic status;, rural
education.
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