Paul T. von Hippel is an associate professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. The research summarized here was published in two academic articles: “Do Test Score Gaps Grow Before, During, or Between the School Years?” (with Caitlin Hamrock, in Sociological Science, 2019) and “Inequality in Reading and Math Skills Forms Mainly before Kindergarten: A Replication, and Partial Correction, of ‘Are Schools the Great Equalizer?’” (with Joe Workman and Doug Downey, in Sociology of Education, 2018).
Editor’s note: This excerpt is reposted with permission from Education Next. It can be read in its entirety here.