In-School and Out-of-School Factors That Build Student Achievement

Summary

Our data show that when an appropriately comprehensive range of in-school and out-of-school student and adult behaviors are taken into account, race and class do not strongly correlate with student achievement levels. Students', teachers', and parents' performance (or nonperformance) of the behaviors described in early sections of this paper show the strongest correlations to student achievement. These data suggest that the achievement gap between students from different races and social classes largely may be most directly associated with variations in the time-use habits of students (in and out of school), and with the involvement of parents, teachers, and adult mentors in students' activities.

Further research is needed with larger urban populations to confirm and expand the findings of these exploratory studies. Future studies should utilize multiple methods, including experimental designs with random samples; data-gathering and analysis techniques that capture students' total array of learning habits in school, home, and community settings; and data-gathering and analysis techniques that capture students' perceptions of the form and function of their out-of-school learning efforts during out-of-school activities. More studies should consider a rigorous, ecological approach to student learning (i.e., examine the multiple settings where a specific cohort of randomly selected students regularly spend time) so that they may adequately capture the most significant determinants of students' school performance on standardized tests.

Policy Options

Collectively, the study results presented do not provide a complete or perfect set of correlates of student achievement. At best, they are suggestive of the deeper structural behavior patterns associated with variations in student achievement. Nevertheless, results from this ethnographic and quantitative work demonstrate that variations in student achievement on standardized tests (whether within-group or between groups) are closely associated with variations in what people do. This fundamental fact presents the prudent reader with clues about particular educational policies and practices in urban schools and community agencies that are likely to effectively impact the achievement gap.

Schools that expect to close the student achievement gap in reading will need to create practices that first:

• Close the gap in the instructional habits and effectiveness of teachers.



• Close the gap in the out-of-school learning habits of students.

The data presented, although drawn from relatively small and nonrandom samples, show that students' academic success in reading (as measured by school norm-referenced test performance) frequently was seen when the following were also in evidence:

• Students spent at least three hours a day with teachers doing structured (presumably well-organized and well-executed) learning activities or lessons.
• Students tended to spend anywhere from 8 to 15 hours a week, depending on grade level, in high-yield, out-of-school learning activities such as reading, writing, study/homework, and intellectually stimulating games and hobbies.
• Students displayed a high level of enthusiasm, focus/effort, and leadership role behavior during each of the activities.
• Students were not engaged in excessive amounts of unstructured leisure activity (e.g., hanging out or watching television), work/chore activities, or travel/commute activities.
• Parents frequently communicated to their students that they (parents) required the students to fully participate in school learning activities, succeed on school tasks, and ultimately complete four years of college one day.
• The students' teacher reached out and contacted parents, built rapport with the parents, and invited parents into a working partnership. The teacher followed up with regular reports to parents about student classroom performance and overall academic progress, information about homework, and information on how to support student learning at home.

The focus of policymaking, in large part, must be on creating and maintaining programs and accountability systems that increase students' involvement in success-oriented lifestyles. These programs and accountability systems must require school staffs and parents to demonstrate that their students are engaged in the requisite types and amounts of constructive classroom learning activities and constructive out-of-school learning activities. If these programs are well-designed, they can add significantly to students' opportunity to learn. When students are not being engaged in a minimal threshold level of constructive activities, schools and/or parents should be required to explain why. A plan for correcting the opportunity-to-learn threshold deficiencies should then be created and implemented. Policymakers must provide appropriate training, resources, and incentives to generate the cultural shift that will be necessary to instigate these practices in most low-achieving school (and after-school) settings.