SES

EFFECT ON TEST SCORES OF ELEMENTARY CHILDREN 1

Socioeconomic Status Effect on Standardized Test Scores

of Elementary School Children
Alexandra Szucs
Bridgewater College

SES EFFECT ON TEST SCORES OF ELEMENTARY CHILDREN 2

Abstract
Socioeconomic status has a large effect of how children perform in schools. A child has no
control over their own socioeconomic status when they are in elementary school but it is a key
factor in how well they do in school. It is not fair to children of low socioeconomic status to
assume they are going to do as well on standardized tests that children of high socioeconomic
status take. Low socioeconomic status children are sometimes worried about whether they get to
eat dinner that night or, in more extreme cases, if they will be kicked out of their house. As an
elementary school aged child, these examples take away attention and can also cause health
problems. Slower learning can also occur because they do not have parental support at home
either because their parents work two jobs and are not home or may not be present in the childs
life for other reasons. Socioeconomic status is one of the biggest pretest indicators of how well a
child may do on standardized testing. If that is the case, then educators should look into how to
accommodate for this disadvantage just as students are accommodated for language deficiency or
exceptional children.
Keywords: education, elementary children, test scores, standardized test, and
socioeconomic status
Word Count: 200

SES EFFECT ON TEST SCORES OF ELEMENTARY CHILDREN 3

I chose to do my research paper on socioeconomic status effect on children taking

standardized testing. In EDUC 215, there was discussion about different aspects of ones cultural
identity. Socioeconomic status is one of the aspects that help to define how people see
themselves as well as how society defines the person. Socioeconomic status is a factor in a
childs life that they are incapable of changing until they are older. They are born into it and stay
in it until they can get out on their own and hopefully make a better living if they were poor or
maintain their lifestyle. Especially in public schools systems, specifically in cities, socioeconomic status is going to be lower than what is found in private schools and some rural
schools. Socioeconomic status is based on educational attainment, income and occupation, which
are then used to rank people in a society as higher or lower than others.
I chose this topic because socioeconomic status affects just about every child. The
perception is that children who come from well-off families do better on standardized testing
than children who come from families of low socioeconomic status. If there is a strong enough
correlation that children from low status families do worse on testing, then standardized testing
should take socioeconomic status into consideration as seriously as language proficiencies and
exceptional children. Students of low socioeconomic status can not be expected to perform at the
same level as high socioeconomic status students because there are more important things to
worry about that could include where their next meal is coming from and, in extreme cases,
whether they get to stay in their home or will be kicked out. Standardized testing was created to
be a means of testing that would accurately rate children against each other to create a national
awareness of achievement. If all students dont have a fair chance at doing their best, then the
testing should be changed. As teachers, we have a responsibility to help children of all levels

SES EFFECT ON TEST SCORES OF ELEMENTARY CHILDREN 4

achieve to the best of their ability. This comes through different methods of teaching the
classroom as well as accommodations where appropriate.
There are many different theories behind the correlation of low socioeconomic status
children and low standardized test scores. James Popham explores one of these theories in his
article entitled Why Standardized Tests Dont Measure Educational Quality. He says that one
of the chief reasons that childrens socioeconomic status is so highly correlated with testing is
because many items on standardized achievement tests really focus on assessing knowledge
and/or skills learned outside of school (Popham, 1999). This implies that testing takes
knowledge that may not be taught in schools but is assumed to have been learned from parents or
the social setting in which one was raised. Popham calls for teachers to assume personal
responsibility and inform lawmakers about the disadvantages of using standardized testing as a
means of measuring educational attainment. Not to completely disregard the need for testing, he
wants teachers to come up with new and better alternatives to standardized testing (Popham,
1999). Another factor going into socioeconomic status is that usually there is a single parent in
most low economic status situations (Entwisle & Alexander, 1995). The lack of economic funds
and the lack of an involved parental unit both factor into lower test scores. Having support from
a parent or parental figure is key to creating a good work and study ethic and having a support
system outside of school. These are two of the top factors going into standardized test scores and
how they relate to socioeconomic status.
Socioeconomic status can depend on whether students have one or two parents but also
how high the parent(s) rank. In some cases, single parents have a higher socioeconomic status
than two parents. However, often times the single parents are of lower socioeconomic status and
this puts the child at risk for lower standardized test grades. Parents education plays a large role

SES EFFECT ON TEST SCORES OF ELEMENTARY CHILDREN 5

in both determining socioeconomic status and how well a child will do and how long a child will
stay in school. In Baltimore, they looked at students scores and compared them with
socioeconomic status and number of parents. They found that children in two-parent families
had higher test scores in both the math and verbal domains than did children in one-parent
families (Entwisle & Alexander, 1995). The children in the one-parent families did not fare so
well and the research concluded that in addition to being a single parent, that parent often
reported almost 1 year less of education, and on average did not finish high school (Entwisle &
Alexander, 1995). Parents are affecting childrens ability to perform well on tests, it is not that
the child does not want to do well or is not working hard enough. Being born into this
socioeconomic status is just as debilitating as having a mental handicap, learning disability,
limited language proficiency and in some cases might be as severe as having a second grade
student taking a third grade standardized test if that child is far enough behind the class or is not
at the level of thinking required by the test. Accommodations are made for those cases and they
should be made for students of lower socioeconomic status.
In Texas, there was a closer examination of the correlation of low socioeconomic status
children receiving lower standardized test scores. Students who had severe learning disabilities
were excluded. In addition, non-English speaking children were given a standardized test in
Spanish (Lorence, 2008). These two categories, mental impairment and insufficient language
proficiency, accounted for 9% of the student population being exempt from taking the test at all,
not taking the test with some accommodation. Their findings concluded that yes, economically
disadvantage students obtain fewer correct answers on the Texas reading and mathematics
examsand number of correct answers on the two Stanford-9 examinations, the standardized
test subjects under review in the article (Lorence, 2008). Jon Lorence goes on to say that low

SES EFFECT ON TEST SCORES OF ELEMENTARY CHILDREN 6

socioeconomic students have a greater effect on the schools average test score than was
previously thought. This could be used to argue that the area around the school does not create a
schools socioeconomic status but that the demographics of the student population attending the
school do. If the socioeconomic status of the school were to increase by diversifying the student
population, not only would the average and reputation of the school increase but the students in
the school may be able to help each other achieve goals that may have been seen as impossible or
unlikely before.
This is not something that is unique to America. In Australia, they looked not only at the
individual childs socioeconomic status but at the socioeconomic status of the school too. There
is agreement worldwide that socioeconomic status has a large effect on standardized testing. The
Australian Council for Education Research went back and looked at the previous years scores
and demographic data for the reading and mathematics to get a baseline of the level at which
schools were achieving. They successfully proved that there was a strong correlation not only
between the individuals socioeconomic status and testing but that by increasing the schools
average socioeconomic status, standardized test scores can be increased as well (Perry &
McConney, 2010). This is something that is seen in Texas and Australia and probably many
more places around the world. If this is a worldwide issue, then more needs to be done about the
inequality that standardized testing creates and even promotes. Children are being set-up for their
future by these tests. Oftentimes this tests limit what classes students are able to take the
following year in school. If they are not pushed and just kept at a mediocre level then they will
stay there forever. Teachers and school faculty need to take a serious look at standardized tests
and inform the public and the lawmakers about what needs to change. Teachers are not doing
their job if they allow students to achieve at a level lower than their full potential.

SES EFFECT ON TEST SCORES OF ELEMENTARY CHILDREN 7

Another example from outside the United States is Britain, which organized a committee
to look at previous test scores and studying the correlation not only between socioeconomic
status and the test scores but also what that means for the student after graduation in terms of
wages at future jobs. The main conclusion reached by Janet Currie and Duncan Thomas was
that children of lower SES have both lower age 16 scores and higher returns to these test scores
in terms of wages and employment probabilities than high-SES children (Currie & Thomas).
This means that children of lower socioeconomic status do not just score lower on tests but that
the below average results carry into jobs in the future. If this is allowed, then teachers and
administration and educational laws are allowing children to be prepared for mediocre jobs after
school, provided that they actually graduate with a General Education Diploma from high
school. This study went on to say that this gap in test scores between high and low
socioeconomic statuses was also changed by the quality of school the student attended. Part of
the reason high socioeconomic children did better on testing is because they could afford to go to
the better quality schools to further their education. In an ideal world, every teacher would be top
of the line and all the schools would be the best schools possible, but that is not realistic at this
point in time. Students who struggle in school are the ones who need the best teachers and need
to go to the best schools but they are often the ones that get left with mediocre teachers at
mediocre schools. The study concludes with the idea that test scores reflect opportunities as
well as ability, and that many of the low-SES children in this cohort could have benefited from
increased opportunity in the form of access to higher quality schools (Currie & Thomas).
Researching into socioeconomic status caused me to realize that it plays a bigger role in
students lives than originally thought. Students are not capable of changing their socioeconomic
status and they should not be penalized for that. In order to be a culturally responsive teacher, I

SES EFFECT ON TEST SCORES OF ELEMENTARY CHILDREN 8

need to be aware of the status of each student and realize that it may affect how he or she
performs on assessments in class or on take home projects. This affects more than students
testing scores and can include things like their mental health, confidence, rate of learning, and
physical health. Socioeconomic status can play into a students culture as heavily as geography,
age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and religion and needs to be taken just as
seriously as the others in order to teach individual students and help them achieve the highest
goals possible. I must also apply this knowledge when planning class activities or trips or asking
for help from parents. Sometimes, it is just not possible for a parent to take an entire day off of
work or for a child to ask their parents for five dollars for the class project. Addressing the issue
of socioeconomic status goes beyond helping the student achieve better grades to helping them
as a person and trying to understand the difficulties with which they live.

Word Count: 1888

SES EFFECT ON TEST SCORES OF ELEMENTARY CHILDREN 9

Bibliography
Currie, J., & Thomas, D. Early Test Scores, School Quality and SES: Longrun Effects on Wage
and Employment Outcomes. Worker Wellbeing in a Changing Labor Market , 20, 103132.
Entwisle, D. R., & Alexander, K. L. (1995). A Parent's Economic Shadow: Family Structure
Versus Family Resources as Influences on Early School Achievement. Journal of
Marriage & Family , 57 (2), 399-409.
Garza, R. E., & Garza, E. J. (2010). Successful White Female Teachers of Mexican American
Students of Low Socioeconomic Status. Journal of Latinos and Education , 9 (3), 189206.
Lorence, J. (2008). Texas TAAS Scores Revisited. Educational Research Quarterly , 31 (4), 332.
Noble, K. G., Norman, M. F., & Farah, M. J. (2005). Neurocognitive Correlates of
Socioeconomic Status in Kindergarten Children. Developmental Science , 8 (1), 74-87.
Perry, L., & McConney, A. (2010). School Socio-Economic Composition and Student Outcomes
in Australia: Implications for Educational Policy. Australian Journal of Education , 54
(1).
Popham, W. J. (1999, March). Why Standardized Tests Don't Measure Educational Quality.
Using Standards and Assessments , 56 (6), pp. 8-15.