A long-term concern of school-effectiveness researchers has been the delivery of educational services to lower-achieving students, who often live in urban areas and come from minority or other socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. The concern has been that to look only at average (mean) achievement in a school might "mask" the ineffective delivery of services to students in traditionally lower-achieving groups. This research on school effectiveness looks at the delivery of services both to the entire school population (measured by the mean score) and to those students who scored below the median (measured by the lower quartile score). Results indicated that mean masking occurred in about 17% of the schools. However, masking occurred more often when schools were doing an average job of educating everyone and an above-average job of educating the lower quartile. Implications for school indicator systems (including recognition and incentive programs) are discussed.
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