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WCER Working Paper No. 2008-7

Desegregation and the Achievement Gap: Do Diverse Peers Help?
Jane Cooley
September 2008, 52 p.

ABSTRACT:

Understanding peer effects is critical to evaluating the effect of persistent public school segregation on the achievement of white and nonwhite students. Using a unique panel data set of North Carolina public elementary school students, I estimate a model of achievement production that incorporates heterogeneous responses by students at different points of the achievement distribution, allows peer spillovers to vary across races and allows students to form different race-based reference groups within the classroom. I find evidence of stronger peer influences within reference groups than across reference groups and the magnitude of these peer influences varies substantially across percentiles of the achievement distribution. I apply my results to evaluate the distributional effects of alternative classroom assignment policies. Desegregating peer groups has minimal effects on the racial achievement gap across the achievement distribution.

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Keywords: Racial Achievement Gap; Peer Effects; Desegregation