Several different factors affect the quality of education students receive. The factor most often discussed is funding, and structural inequalities that cause disparity in resource allocation have justly been the focus of much legal attention. This Article focuses, however, on another factor influencing the quality of education, namely on student composition. Education is a unique good, in which the quality of the outcome depends on the identity of the consumers. Studying in a class with bright and motivated peers who cultivate academic aspirations and share their cultural capital improves student achievement.97 Some researchers argue
that, taken alone, the “peer group effect” is the most important factor influencing educational outcome.98 As a result,
grouping together high ability students improves education. The peer effect explains part of the “private school effect,” the advantage that private schools demonstrate in student achievement.99 Private schools enjoy higher student
achievement, in part, because they concentrate high achievers
97 GARY ORFIELD & CHUGMEI LEE, WHY SEGREGATION MATTERS:
POVERTY AND EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITY 15–16(2005).
98 This factor was first highlighted in The Coleman Report in 1966.
James S. Coleman, The Concept of Equality of Education Opportunity, 38 HARV.EDUC.REV.(1967). See also KIRK A. JOHNSON,THE PEER EFFECT ON
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AMONG PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS
(2000); For updated evidence from five different countries, and between schools with different characteristics, ownership, funding, and enrollment,
see Ron W. Zimmer & Eugenia F. Toma, Peer Effects in Private and Public
Schools Across Countries, 19 J.POL’Y ANALYSIS &MGMT.75 (2000).
99 Together with their SES and race, this arguably explains the
who create positive peer effects. The peer effect also explains why grouping together children with low ability causes a further deterioration in their educational achievements. In addition to having inferior educational prospects, they are not exposed to the advantages of highly talented and motivated peers, and this, in turn, adversely affects the quality of the education they receive.100
Students’ academic ability is correlated with their background circumstances. The academic abilities and attainments (as expressed in test scores and evaluations) of students from affluent families tend to be higher than those of students from low-income families.101 Several structural
conditions lead to this outcome. Students from poorer backgrounds are less likely to have adequate health care and nutrition.102 They are more likely to be exposed to violence,
family crisis and unrest, and other situations that impede their capacity for uninterrupted learning. Their parents are less likely to be involved in their children’s education, and to be able to assist them with their homework as they are themselves less educated, and may be working multiple jobs.103 They typically own fewer books, have not been read to
as infants as much as their middle class peers, and their
100 See Orfield & Lee, supra note 97, at 15.
101 See e.g., Richard D. Kahlenberg, Socioeconomic School
Integration 85 N.C.L.REV 1545 (2006-2007); RICHARD D. KAHLENBERG,ALL
TOGETHER NOW: CREATING MIDDLE-CLASS SCHOOLS THROUGH PUBLIC
SCHOOL CHOICE 25–35 (2001) (citing numerous studies finding that a
school's socioeconomic status is second only to social background as a determinant of students’ academic successes); Russell W. Rumberger & Gregory J. Palardy, Does Segregation Still Matter? The Impact of Student
Composition on Academic Achievement in High School, 107 TCHRS. C. REC
1999, 2014 (2005) (finding that students’ and school SES are equally influential); and RICHARD ROTHSTEIN, CLASS AND SCHOOLS 37–47 (2004)
(arguing that students from lower SES are less likely to have adequate health care and adequate conditions for learning).
102 See ROTHSTEIN, id.
103 ANNETE LAREAU,UNEQUAL CHILDHOODS: CLASS RACE AND FAMILY
parents are less likely to engage with them in cognitively stimulating activities.
What follows is that grouping together students according to social class (for example, when neighborhoods are segregated) also entails grouping together students according to academic ability, and vice-versa.104 In other words, social
segregation further compromises the educational opportunities of disadvantaged children. Accordingly, schools that serve middle class communities are likely to serve a higher percentage of high achievers, and the positive peer effects in these schools are likely to induce further educational benefits.
Grouping together high achievers from affluent families also reinforces disparities in the allocation of educational resources. Schools that educate high achievers attract better teachers,105 so schools that serve disadvantaged
104 Accordingly, there is a large body of research that shows that
ability grouping results in socioeconomic segregation. See Daniel J. Losen,
Silent Segregation in Our Nation’s Schools, 34 HARV.C.R.-C.L.L.REV.517
(1999); George Ansalone, Schooling, Tracking, and Inequality, 7(1) J.CHILD.
&POVERTY 33 (2001); Jeannie Oakes, Two Cities’ Tracking and Within-
School Segregation, 96 TCHR. C. REC. 681 (1995); Anthony D. Greene,
Tracking Work: Race-Ethnic Variation in Vocational Course Placement and
Consequences for Academic and Career Outcomes, 1(1) INT’L J. EDUC. STUD.
9 (2014); Mary Cipriano-Walter, Falling off the Track: How Ability Tracking
Leads to Intra-School Segregation, 41 T. MARSHALL L.REV. 25 (2015).
105 While intuitively, there is such a thing as better and worse
teachers, determining what makes one a good teacher is much more complicated. Hanushek, for example, claims that the difference in added value between good and bad teachers can amount to more than a year’s worth of studying. However, he states that there is no reliable way to identify effective teachers through class size, salary, and education. See Erik Hanushek, School Resources and Student Performance, in DOES
MONEY MATTER 59-60 (Gary Burtless ed., 1996). But see NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS,MONITORING SCHOOL QUALITY:AN INDICATOR
REPORT (2000), http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/2001030.pdf
[https://perma.cc/3NLP-MRZU] (arguing that possessing academic skills; teaching in the field of training, experience and participation in professional development programs are all measurable parameters for quality teachers).
children are also staffed by less professional teachers.106
Schools serving advantaged children also benefit from parental involvement. Advantaged parents are typically more involved in schools and contribute their resources and time.107
As a result, student composition and peer effects join other social causes of educational deprivation and amplify existing patterns of educational inequality.