Black students might benefit more from year-round schooling than students of other races, according to a university African American studies professor.
A small crowd in Taliaferro Hall yesterday listened to Odis Johnson Jr.’s, “Great Equalizers or Conduits of Neighborhood Social Disorganization? A Crossed-Counterfactual Analysis of Year-Round and Nine-month Schooling” brown bag discussion, in which he explained how school year length might affect the race gap in educational achievement.
Black boys start school with lower test scores, Johnson said, and they also see the least improvements after entering school; by the first grade, they are 4.8 months behind their peers in reading, he added. Johnson, who is interim chairman of the African American studies department, said previous studies were inconclusive as to whether schools or other social factors caused these differences.
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