WACO, Texas—The academic achievement gap between Anglo students and their African-American or Hispanic peers disappears when the students live in intact, religious families, a new study shows.
William Jeynes, a nonresident researcher with the Baylor Univer-sity Institute for Studies of Religion in Waco, Texas, and professor of education at California State University at Long Beach, discovered religious commitment and intact parental family structures bridge the achievement gap, both among students in public schools and in private religious schools.
“The results suggest that the achievement gap might not be quite as indefatigable and pervasive as many people believe. Given the number of efforts social scientists have launched to reduce the achievement gap, the fact that the combination of personal religious commitment and coming from an intact family eliminates the gap for African-American and Latino students is nothing short of magnificent,” Jeynes wrote in an article published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion.
Furthermore, in single-parent families with a deep religious commitment, the achievement gap between African-American and Hispanic students and their Anglo counterparts is halved, he noted, suggesting devotion to faith makes the key difference in academic success.
“Clearly, their faith is a source of strength,” Jeynes said, presenting his findings in a lecture at Baylor University.
Jeynes' research focused particularly on the benefits of religious schools as compared to public education.
“According to the findings, students of low socioeconomic status and students of color especially benefit from attending religious schools,” he asserted.
Not only do students in religious schools outperform their counterparts in public schools in almost every measurable area of academic achievement, but the gaps between low socioeconomic students and high socioeconomic students—as well as between Anglo students and ethnic minorities—also are reduced and, in some areas, eliminated, he found.
His research showed the lower the student's socioeconomic status, the greater the benefit from a religious school education. And for all academic measures, regardless of socioeconomic status, African-American and Hispanic students benefit more than Anglos from attending religious schools, he discovered.
Public schools can learn from the example of religious schools, Jeynes suggested.
“Although educators are frequently divided over the merits of school choice, there is a growing consensus that public schools can benefit by imitating some of the strengths of the religious school model. There may be limitation on just what qualities can be imitated, but the increased emphasis on character education, high academic standards and parental involvement can be imitated,” he concluded.
Jeynes offered several recommendations for educators:
• “Recognize education is not just about methodology but is also about loving the child,” he said.
• Raise expectations regarding students' effort and work ethic.
• Encourage parental involvement. “Establish strong relationships with parents,” he suggested.
• Encourage students to draw from their sources of strength—including their religious beliefs.
But Jeynes voiced some doubt about how effectively public educators could incorporate some of the elements that make religious schools most effective. He supports a system of “school choice” that provides low-income and minority students access to religious schools.
But Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, took issue with Jeynes' call for any system that uses public tax dollars for private religious education.
“It is prejudicial to religious schools' autonomy and ultimately a denial of religious liberty for government to subsidize—and therefore regulate—pervasively religious schools,” he said. “It is simply wrong to tax Citizen A to pay to teach Citizen B's religion.
“Acceptable alternatives are to tap private sources of financial aid, choice within the public schools and a serious commitment to reforming and funding public education.”