Chapter 2: Asian American and Pacific Islander Students: Third Graders and the Achievement Gap

This chapter extends research on the achievement gap found in Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) seventh graders from California (Pang, Han, & Pang, 2011) by examining the reading and math performance of over 316,600 California AAPI third graders. As with the seventh grade population, we found achievement gap differences between the AAPI third graders and their White peers. Another similarity was significant differences across the 13 AAPI ethnic groups in reading and math performance. However, there was less variability in performance among the AAPI ethnic groups than for the seventh graders. Comparisons of the third grade and seventh grade results also suggest that some AAPI ethnic groups may be losing ground academically relative to Whites or other AAPI groups as they progress through school. These findings reveal that for AAPI students the achievement gap is an equity issue and needs to be addressed in the primary grades.