Educators and policy makers, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, have said in recent days they hope President Obama’s example as a model student could inspire millions of American students, especially blacks, to higher academic performance. Now, researchers say they have documented this so-called Obama effect, reports the New York Times. Their study shows that a performance gap between African-Americans and whites on a 20-question test administered before Obama’s nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election. The inspiring role model that Obama projected helped blacks overcome anxieties about racial stereotypes that had been shown, in earlier research, to lower the test-taking proficiency of African-Americans, the researchers conclude in a report summarizing their results. "Obama is obviously inspirational, but we wondered whether he would contribute to an improvement in something as important as black test-taking," said Ray Friedman, a management professor at Vanderbilt University, one of the study’s three authors. "We were skeptical that we would find any effect, but our results surprised us." The study has not yet undergone peer review, and two academics who read it Jan. 22 said they would be interested to see if other researchers would be able to replicate its results…