Correcting dynamic inequality in practice: Exploring what schools do for low-performing students

In the previous chapter, I confirmed that inequality among students increases over the period from eighth to tenth to twelfth grade, in a pattern I have referred to as dynamic inequality. The increases over time are most strongly related to family background and to demographic variables, including race and ethnicity, though there is some evidence that school resources and improvements in student commitment to schooling can moderate dynamic inequality. Furthermore, dynamic inequality increases not steadily but in bursts—for example, when students move from middle school to high school—so the question of what schools do to moderate dynamic inequality...