National Center for Education Statistics

The Black–White achievement gap has often been studied, but its relationship to school composition has generally not been explored. The demographic makeup of public schools is of particular interest, given recent concerns about the growing resegregation of schools (Frankenberg, Lee, and Orfield 2003; Orfield, Kucsera, and Siegel-Hawley 2012). This report explored eighth-grade achievement as it relates to the percentage of students in the school who were Black, or the density of Black students, to contribute to the understanding of the Black–White student achievement gap. The data used to explore these relationships came primarily from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2011 Mathematics Grade 8 Assessment but also from the Common Core of Data for 2010–11, which provided additional school characteristics.
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