Abstract:
Scholastic research on academic achievement has focused on the impact of socioeconomic factors on student performance. Little of this research has examined the achievement in a geographic sense, evaluating the change in impact of socioeconomic factors over a geographic area. In this study, I determine the socioeconomic factors that best predict low academic achievement in elementary schools within the Chicago Public School District. I also evaluate the range of influence of each predictor variable across the district. I hypothesized that five socioeconomic variables would predict low academic achievement: percent low-income households, percent African American and Hispanic population, percent students receiving free or reduced lunch, unemployment rate, and percent of population that only attended high school. It was determined that the percent of low income households and the percent African American and Hispanic population were moderate predictors of low achievement. The percent low income households had the greatest influence on low achievement in the southern part of Chicago, while the Percent African American and Hispanic had a greater influence in the northern part. This indicates that the presence of low income affects achievement in areas with large African American and Hispanic populations, while ethno-racial status is important in areas of Chicago that have larger White, non-Hispanic populations.
