Large bias against black students surfaces in national study of teacher opinions

When looking at the same students, teachers of differing backgrounds have vastly different expectations. New research from Johns Hopkins University suggests that this is no fluke or quirk, but a deeply ingrained problem with profound economic implications.

Nicholas Papageorge, who studies labor and the economy, tracked 8,400 high school sophomores and found that teachers showed a clear pattern of low expectations for their black students. He and study co-author Seth Gershenson asked two different teachers, who had each taught a particular youth in math or reading, to predict how far that student would get in school.