The children in this study, whose families met the federal guidelines as economically disadvantaged, scored well below the mean for the norming sample in both expressive and receptive language at the pretest.
SEIFA is a composite index that ranks geographic areas across Australia in terms of their relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage based on census data, where lower scores indicate more disadvantaged areas and higher scores indicate more advantaged areas.
However, the findings also suggest lower social quality for disadvantaged individuals who scored poorly in social cohesion, social empowerment and social inclusion.
To determine the Best High Schools national rankings, schools were first analyzed at the state level in terms of how well students in each school performed on state assessments, taking into account the test scores of disadvantaged students (low-income, Hispanic, and black), who tend to score lower on tests.
Mr. Bush's plan would require states to separate out the test scores of disadvantaged students, then reward states in which those scores improved.
Of the test-takers, disadvantaged minority students usually score lower than whites, who are mostly middle class, even when scores of both groups are rising.
IRSD scores have been grouped into quintiles (highest, high, middle, low and lowest) for analysis, where the highest quintile represents postcodes with the highest IRSD scores (most advantaged areas) and the lowest quintile represents postcodes with the lowest IRSD scores (most disadvantaged areas) [ 22].
Measured using that conventional approach, the gap in math scores between disadvantaged eighth graders and their classmates in Michigan is 0.69 standard deviations.
The decline has led some commentators to embrace demographic determinism — the idea that the verbal scores of disadvantaged students will not significantly rise until we overcome poverty.
Under the Bush plan, the federal government would provide bonus money to districts that boosted the scores of disadvantaged students and deduct funds from districts that failed to do so.
