In a paper recently published in the Canadian Journal of Economics, Professors Jane Friesen and Brian Krauth of Simon Fraser University try to understand why Aboriginal students in British Columbia score significantly lower than non-Aboriginal students in standard, province-wide tests. Are Aboriginal students at worse schools? Do they suffer from being with low-achieving peers? Or is the achievement gap coming from something outside the school system?
The Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal achievement gap is apparent in grade four, but widens between grade four and grade seven. It’s that widening gap that is the focus of Profs. Friesen and Krauth’s study.
They find that about half of the growth in the test score gap is explained by “school characteristics.” A typical Aboriginal student attends a school where, on average, students are falling behind. The problem is not lack of funds – B.C.’s funding formula directs greater resources into school districts with more Aboriginal students and students with special needs. Perhaps it’s teaching quality? Or something else? Peer effects matter in education, that is, being in a school with high-achieving peers seems to boost a student’s own achievement level.
An average Aboriginal student goes to school with a substantially higher proportion of Aboriginal peers and peers with disabilities. Profs. Friesen and Krauth look at year-to-year changes in the composition of schools’ student bodies over time, and conclude that peer effects do not explain the performance gap. They conclude that:
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•If anything, Aboriginal students may benefit from attending a school with higher concentrations of Aboriginal students and higher concentrations of students with some disabilities, perhaps because these students bring additional funds.
It’s a crucial policy issue, in part because of the number of Aboriginal students in B.C. – about 9 per cent of BC students are Aboriginal. It matters, too, because Aboriginal Canadian adults suffer more than others from almost every social and economic ill, including poverty, poor health outcomes, drug and alcohol addiction, and suicide. Healing adults is not easy, but when children are in school, they can be started on a path towards a happier life.
Profs. Friesen and Krauth are not convinced that school vouchers are the answer – and B.C. already has a substantial amount of school choice. But their research suggests that it is possible to identify schools that are ameliorating the Aboriginal achievement gap, and schools that aren’t. This gives room for hope: by studying the successful (and not so successful schools), it may be possible to find out which teaching methods and classroom structures benefit Aboriginal students – and which ones don’t.