Long-term effects of Native Hawaiian students' early academic achievement under the No Child Left Behind legislation: A multilevel cohort analysis.

摘要

The focus of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Legislation is to close the achievement gaps due to disadvantages based on minority status, socio-economic status, special education (SPED) or Limited English Proficiency (LEP). Poverty and culture have been consistently reported to have an impact on academic achievement. However, there have been few cohort studies that have investigated the impact of early academic achievement on long-term academic success in conjunction with the effects of poverty and culture. Furthermore, no multilevel studies have been conducted to study the impact of early academic achievement on future success from elementary to high school within the NCLB context. This oversight has inadvertently directed attention away from the impact of students' performance at early grades on their future academic achievement.;Among all ethnic groups in Hawaii, the Native Hawaiian student population has the lowest academic performance in Hawaii's public schools. Cultural and socio-economic disadvantages are usually associated with low performing groups. However, the disadvantage of having low early academic achievement has yet to receive adequate attention. Establishing the unique disadvantage of low early academic achievement beyond the disadvantages due to culture or poverty is crucial since early academic achievement may be one important factor affecting the student's future academic performance. A careful examination of the impact of early success on future academic achievement for the 2002 Native Hawaiian cohort was therefore conducted with the White peers serving as the control group.;This multilevel cohort analysis revealed a significant and dominant impact of the academic performance at Grade 3 on the reading or math performance at the fifth, eighth and tenth grades over and beyond the effect of culture and poverty. This impact remained stable from elementary to middle school and from elementary to high school. The current study also revealed that Hawaiian ancestry translates into an additional unique disadvantage on academic performance at the fifth, eighth or tenth grade. This disadvantage increases from the third grade onwards to the tenth grade with early academic performance and poverty statistically controlled for. In contrast, the impact of low socio-economic status remained stable from the third to the tenth grade. Those results were stable whether or not SPED students were included in the analysis.;The findings suggest a need to focus interventions on foundational academic preparation at the early grades. Educators in public schools should also direct more attention toward Native Hawaiian students. NCLB's focus on closing the achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged groups at the school level need to be broadened to allow more instructional attention to be directed towards earlier grades.