The Effects of Schools on Achievement

James S. Coleman et al.

James S. Coleman is a sociologist who has devoted much of his research to issues involving the behavior and achievement of students in different types of schools. In the 1960s he led a team of researchers who conducted a massive study of achievement in public elementary and secondary schools. The resulting report, Equality of Educational Opportunity, is still cited widely in discussions on how to improve our schools.

Of the many implications of this study of school effects on achievement, one appears to be of overriding importance. This is the implication that stems from the following results taken together:

1. The great importance of family background for achievement;
2. The fact that the relation of family background to achievement does not diminish over the years of school;
3. The relatively small amount of school-to-school variation that is not accounted for by differences in family background, indicating the small independent effect of variations in school facilities, curriculum, and staff upon achievement;
4. The small amount of variance in achievement explicitly accounted for by variations in facilities and curriculum;
5. Given the fact that no school factors* account for much variation in achievement, teachers' characteristics account for more than any other—[but] teachers tend to be socially and racially similar to the students they teach;
6. The fact that the social composition of the student body is more highly related to achievement, independently of the student's own social background, than is any school factor;
7. The fact that attitudes such as a sense of control of the environment, or a belief in the responsiveness of the environment, are extremely highly related to achievement, but appear to be little influenced by variations in school characteristics.

Taking all these results together, one implication stands out above all: That schools bring little influence to bear on a child's achievement that is independent of his background and general social context; and that this very lack of an independent effect means that the inequalities imposed on children by their home, neighborhood, and peer environment are carried along to become the inequalities with which they confront adult life at the end of school. For equality of educational opportunity through the schools must imply a strong effect of schools that is independent of the child's immediate social environment, and that strong independent effort is not present in American schools.

Questions

1. What are some of the reasons why the relationship between family background and achievement does not diminish as a group of low-income students proceeds through the grades?
2. In what ways might the socioeconomic composition of the student body as a whole influence a student's achievement level?
3. In what way can findings from Equality of Educational Opportunity be used to support the conclusion that low-income students attending inner-city poverty schools should be transferred to predominantly middle-class schools?
4. If you were employed in a school with many students from low-income homes, what might you do to help improve their achievement? How might a teacher or a school faculty work to help low-status students become more positive about their chances for succeeding in school and later in life?

*School factors analyzed in the study included facilities and instructional materials, class size, expenditures per student, curricula, characteristics of the teachers, and the social and educational backgrounds of the other students.

Source: James S. Coleman et al., Equality of Educational Opportunity (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966), cover, p. 325.