The Effect of Expectations on Achieving Equity in State-Wide Testing: Lessons From Massachusetts

One of the most enduring assumptions in American education is the belief that children of poor people, particularly those of ethnic and racial minorities, are deficient in the kind of intellectual skills that are typical of the affluent mainstream. It is an assumption that appears to be confirmed by objective evidence. Standardized tests have repeatedly demonstrated that, even when schools succeed in remedying deficiencies in basic skills these children continue to lag behind (Mullis, Dossey, Owen, & Phillips, 1993).