50 Years Ago, One Report...

This summer marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most influential education research reports ever released.

The report — colloquially known as the Coleman report after its lead author James S. Coleman — unveiled two major surprises. First, it revealed an enormous achievement gap between America’s black and white students. Second, it suggested that the gap arose largely from differences among families.

Over the last 50 years, the Coleman report has become its own institution. It has been scrutinized, corroborated, covered up, used to make social policy, and, ultimately, dramatically improved upon.

Here, we tell the story of the Coleman report and the important, fascinating, and still evolving school of research it has spawned. It is a story about how scholars have tried to unravel the tangled relationships between race, income, school, and children’s academic and life outcomes. And it is about the surprising conclusions they’ve reached....

Read more at Chalkbeat.