students face deficits in these areas that affect school achievement. The school environment presents factors such as teacher preparation and experience, class size, school safety, and the school curriculum, which affect student achievement. Darling-Hammond (2000) stated that that the school experience of African American and other minority students continues to be unequal. Different learning opportunities exist for minority students. Small schools and classes, high quality curriculum, and well-qualified teachers are strongly related to differences in achievement of students.
Entwisle and Alexander (1992) reported findings of a longitudinal study of mathematics achievement for African-American and white students. Findings revealed that Baltimore students beginning with first grade demonstrated identical mathematics achievement levels for both African-American and white students. However two years later the African-American students were behind by a half standard deviation. Home i
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