Indicator

Mathematics and Science Performance During the Kindergarten Year

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–11 (ECLS-K:2011) is a nationally representative, longitudinal study of children's development, early learning, and school progress (Mulligan, Hastedt, and McCarroll 2012). The study began with approximately 18,200 children in kindergarten in fall 2010 and will follow and test them every year until spring 2016, when most of them are expected to be in fifth grade. The study gathers information from many sources, including the students themselves, their families, teachers, schools, and beforeand after-school care providers. These data provide a wealth of information on children's cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development; family and neighborhood environments; school conditions; and beforeand after-school care. The longitudinal study design will enable research on how various family, school, community, and individual factors are associated with school performance over time. At the time this chapter was prepared, only data from the initial year of the study were available for analysis. This section, therefore, presents descriptive information on children when they enter school and their initial mathematics and science assessment results (mathematics and science assessment scores cannot be compared directly because scales are developed independently for each subject). This information will serve as a baseline for measuring students' progress on future assessments as they advance through elementary school. Findings from these assessments will be presented in future editions of Science and Engineering Indicators.

Demographic Profile of U.S. First-Time Kindergartners

In fall 2010, about 3.5 million U.S. children entered kindergarten for the first time (Mulligan, Hastedt, and McCarroll 2012). Students in this cohort came from diverse backgrounds: about two-fifths of kindergartners (38%) had at least one parent with a bachelor's degree or higher, 32% had parents who attended some college but did not earn a bachelor's degree, and 29% had parents with no more than a high school education (see table First-time kindergarteners and their average mathematics and science assessment scores, by child, family, and school characteristics: Academic year 2010–11). About one-quarter of children were living in families with incomes below the federal poverty level (25%) or in single-parent households (22%). Fifteen percent of students came from families where the primary language used at home was not English. Nearly half (47%) were racial and ethnic minorities, with Hispanics being the largest minority group (24%), followed by blacks (13%) and Asians (4%).¹ The following analysis examines the size and direction of achievement differences among different groups at the outset of formal schooling.

Mathematics Performance²

Even as early as kindergarten, large gaps in mathematical understanding already exist among different subpopulations. Initial mathematics assessment scores varied by parental education level; for example, children whose parents had less than a high school education scored 15 points (on a scale of 0–75) below their peers whose parents attended a graduate or professional school (figure 1-1). Students from homes with a primary language other than English earned an average of 24 points on the initial mathematics test, compared with 30 points earned by those with a primary home language of English. Students from families with incomes below the federal poverty level scored 9 points below their peers from families with incomes at or above 200% of the federal poverty level. Those from single-parent households also did not perform as well as those from two-parent households (26 versus 31 points). The gaps were further evident among different racial and ethnic groups: black and Hispanic students lagged behind Asian students by 9 to 10 points and white students by 6 to 7 points.

By spring 2011, the overall average mathematics score of kindergartners had increased by 13 points, from 29 to 42, on the 0–75 scale (figure 1-1). All groups gained 12–13 points from fall 2010 to spring 2011. Although the performance gaps did not widen during this period, students' initial exposure to formal schooling did not help narrow these gaps either.

Science Performance

Overall, kindergartners earned an average of 11 points (on a scale of 0–20) on their initial science assessment administered several months after the beginning of the school year (appendix table 1-1). Like in mathematics, variations in science performance among kindergartners with different characteristics were evident at this early stage of schooling, and the pattern of variations was largely similar. For example, science assessment scores increased with parental education level, with children whose parents had less than a high school education scoring 4 points below their peers whose parents attended a graduate or professional school (9 versus 13 points). Kindergartners from homes with a primary home language other than English earned an average of 9 points on the initial science assessment, compared with 12 points earned by those with a primary home language of English. Those from households with incomes below the federal poverty level also had lower scores than their peers from households with incomes at or above 200% of the federal poverty level (10 versus 13 points). Among all racial and ethnic groups, white children earned the highest average score (12 points), followed by American Indian or Alaska Native and Asian children (about 11 points for both groups); black and Hispanic children earned the lowest average score (about 10 points for both groups).

Large gaps in student performance at the beginning of formal schooling suggest that nonschool factors play a big role in these disparities. Although a body of research has attempted to identify various factors underlying students' achievement gaps, efforts have mostly focused on schoolrelated factors such as teacher quality, available resources, principal leadership, and school climate, or such nonschool factors as sex, race and ethnicity, and family socioeconomic status (SES) (Coleman et al. 1966; Corcoran and Evans 2008; Fryer and Levitt 2004; Greenwald, Hedges, and Laine 1996; Hanushek and Rivkin 2006; Lamb and Fullarton 2002; Leonidas et al. 2010; OECD 2005; Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain 2005). Researchers are now turning their attention to a broader range of nonschool factors beyond students' demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and probing deeper into their roles in student achievement (Henig and Reville 2011) (see The Role of Nonschool Factors in Student Learning).

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