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LDXXXX10.1177/0022219419881632Journal of Learning DisabilitiesWoods et al.

Article
Journal of Learning Disabilities

How Stable is Early Academic

1­–17
© Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0022219419881632
https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219419881632

Classify Low Achievement and EF journaloflearningdisabilities.sagepub.com

Adrienne D. Woods, PhD,1 Sammy F. Ahmed, MS,2

Benjamin D. Katz, PhD,3 and Frederick J. Morrison, PhD2

Abstract
We explored whether and how cognitive measures of executive function (EF) can be used to help classify academic
performance in Kindergarten and first grade using nonparametric cluster analysis. We found that EF measures were useful
in classifying low-reading performance in both grades, but mathematics performance could be grouped into low, average,
and high groups without the use of EF tasks. Membership in the high-performing groups was more stable through first
grade than membership in the low or average groups, and certain Kindergarten EF tasks differentially predicted first-grade
reading and mathematics cluster membership. Our results suggest a stronger link between EF deficits and low performance
than between EF strengths and high performance. We highlight the importance of simultaneously using academic and
cognitive skills to classify achievement, particularly since existing classification schemes have been largely based on arbitrary
cutoffs using limited academic measures.

Keywords
performance classification, educational tracking, executive function, academic achievement, cluster analysis, early schooling

An enduring goal in education research is distinguishing
between students with low academic achievement who ulti-
mately receive special education services and those who
would be considered typically developing and thus ineligi-
ble for special education (e.g., Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes, Lipsey,
& Roberts, 2001; Hoskyn & Swanson, 2000; Ysseldyke,
Algozzine, Shinn, & McGue, 1982). However, existing
techniques for classifying or tracking academic performance
largely rely on arbitrary cut points, sometimes using only
one measure to group students (e.g., Kim et al., 2016; Moser,
West, & Hughes, 2012). Serious questions remain regarding
whether these techniques are the most effective means of
classifying performance, despite a century’s worth of
research on ability grouping (Steenbergen-Hu, Makel, &
Olszewski-Kubilius, 2016). The current study explores how
we might better classify low-performing students within the
first 2 years of schooling using a wide variety of academic
performance and executive function (EF) measures.
Low academic performers who are otherwise classified
as typically developing are at risk for poorer educational
attainment and school drop-out, which could lead to limited
access to better-paying jobs, poorer health, and less social–
political participation (Battin-Pearson et al., 2000). Low
academic performance is often also accompanied by cogni-
tive deficits in EF (Best, Miller, & Naglieri, 2011). Yet,
whether and to what extent EF measures can be used to help
classify academic performance among low-performing stu-
dents without disabilities remains unclear. Although cluster
analysis has been levied as a method that may help classify
low-performing students to maximize accurate educational
tracking, there has been limited research utilizing this meth-
odology for these purposes beyond its application to select
subsamples of children with disabilities (Loehlin, Wright,
Hansell, & Martin, 2018). Therefore, we conducted an
exploratory analysis evaluating the relations between EF
tasks and low, average, or high academic performance to
assess how using EF tasks might change the way these per-
formance designations are made.
Classifying Academic Performance Beyond
Identifying Disability
Researchers have long focused on how the co-development
of cognitive and academic abilities helps identify, track, and
1
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA
2
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
3
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA
Corresponding Author:
Adrienne D. Woods, PhD, Department of Education Policy Studies, Pennsylvania
State University, 310B Rackley Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
Email: adriennedwoods@gmail.com
2 Journal of Learning Disabilities 00(0)
group students with different skill levels. Some have argued
that poor readers and students with learning disabilities
share cognitive deficits irrespective of general cognitive
abilities, which evinced the idea that low achievers are not
clearly separable from students with disabilities (Fuchs
et al., 2001; Hoskyn & Swanson, 2000; Siegel, 1992;
Ysseldyke et al., 1982). While the bottom 10th percentile
has been used to conservatively identify children who may
have a disability (Morgan, Farkas, Hillemeier, & Maczuga,
2012), there is no “gold standard” for identifying children
with learning disorders (Skibbe, Justice, Zucker, &
McGinty, 2008). The lack of agreement on a definition for
learning disabilities beyond “unexpected” or “specific”
learning failure has led some to call for more objective
assessments of performance during the identification pro-
cess (Fuchs et al., 2001).
Today, many studies investigating performance classifi-
cations use a cutoff measure to differentiate low, average,
and high performance among typically developing students.
However, this cutoff is not standard across studies.
Researchers have conceptualized “below average” or “low
performing” students as those who perform below the
median (e.g., Kim et al., 2016; Moser et al., 2012), below the
20th to 30th percentile (e.g., Geary, Hoard, Byrd-Craven, &
DeSoto, 2004; Jordan, Hanich, & Kaplan, 2003; Navarro
et al., 2012), or beyond one standard deviation from the sam-
ple mean (e.g., Gathercole et al., 2016; Skibbe et al., 2008).
The problem with the lack of standardization in grouping
criteria is that low- or average-performing groups could be
displaying average or high performance (respectively) in a
study with a different classification scheme (e.g., tertiary
sample splits of performance versus standard deviation cut-
offs), which hinders replicability. This lack of standardiza-
tion is further compounded by the fact that cutoffs may be
made using only one measure at a time instead of examin-
ing performance more generally across several academic
and nonacademic tests.
Educational Tracking
Classifying student performance has also long been used
for the practice of educational tracking, or assigning stu-
dents to groups based on their perceived academic ability
under the guise that students will learn better when matched
with students of similar skill levels (Ansalone, 2010). It is
most commonly applied in the case of advanced, acceler-
ated, or gifted students, but some also consider special edu-
cation a unique form of tracking given that students receive
these services in part based on academic ability (Lipsky &
Gartner, 1989).
Tracking relies on teachers’ ability to place students into
the tracks that most appropriately reflect their skill levels.
Yet, whether and to what extent teachers are able to do this
effectively and accurately is unclear. There has also been
controversy and scholarly debate regarding the utility of
educational tracking (e.g., see Oakes, 2005). For instance,
whether tracking decisions are accurate is highly debated,
but this is important to consider given that most students
remain in their academic track once placed (Eccles, 2004;
Oakes, 2005). Although grades and standardized test scores
are considered the best predictors of tracking decisions
(e.g., Hallinan, 1992; Southworth & Mickelson, 2007),
teachers may be biased in their judgment of whether stu-
dents should be tracked, especially when students also
show inconsistent academic profiles (e.g., discrepancies
between grades and standardized tests; Glock, Krolak-
Schwerdt, Klapproth, & Böhmer, 2013). This means that
there are practical questions regarding how likely it is that
a low-performing student continues to display low perfor-
mance, continually begetting a low academic track.
Uncovering more objective and precise methods of classi-
fying students, particularly those that do not rely on arbi-
trary cutoffs, may reduce bias, improve tracking decisions,
and help resolve the debate regarding whether and to what
extent we should rely on educational tracking in our
schools.
Can EF Help Classify and Track Academic
Performance?
Years of research have demonstrated substantial relations
among young children’s EF skills and emerging and persis-
tent mathematics and literacy achievement (e.g., Blair &
Razza, 2007; Gathercole & Pickering, 2000; Jacob &
Parkinson, 2015; Lan, Legare, Ponitz, Li, & Morrison,
2011; McClelland et al., 2007). EF refers to an individual’s
ability to complete tasks and purposefully guide their men-
tal thoughts and behaviors to achieve certain goals
(Cartwright, 2012). EF skills include working memory
(WM), attention control, and response inhibition (Blair,
2002). Strong EF skills are necessary in a learning environ-
ment where students are expected to pay attention, follow
rules, and concentrate on both cognitive and behavioral
tasks (Blair, 2002; Blair & Razza, 2007). Although stronger
EF skills allow students to better adapt to the demands of
early classrooms and schooling, deficits in EF have also
been linked to reduced academic performance. This is par-
ticularly true for the relationship between WM and general
achievement (Ahmed, Tang, Waters, & Davis-Kean, 2019;
Best et al., 2011; Gathercole et al., 2016), WM and mathe-
matics performance (Geary et al., 2004), attentional control
and reading performance (Lam & Beale, 1991), and
response inhibition and both reading and math (Blair &
Razza, 2007; Cameron et al., 2012). Each of these EF com-
ponents have also been linked to specific aspects of both
literacy and numeracy, such as print knowledge (Purpura,
Schmitt, & Ganly, 2017), vocabulary and phonological
awareness (Allan & Lonigan, 2011), as well as counting,
Woods et al. 3
cardinality, subitizing, and set comparison (Purpura et al.,
2017). In a recent meta-analysis, Allan, Hume, Allan,
Farrington, and Lonigan (2014) found a moderate associa-
tion (r = .34) between children’s inhibitory control and per-
formance on standardized tests of math achievement.
Furthermore, a study of attention control showed that kin-
dergarteners with better attention scores outperformed stu-
dents with poorer attention skills on standardized measures
of math achievement (Howse, Lange, Farran, & Boyles,
2003). Blair and colleagues (2015) reported that attentional
control predicted growth in scores on standardized tests of
achievement from preschool to second grade, over and
above demographic and early achievement covariates.
Overall, there is ample evidence that EF may be closely
connected to academic achievement, which provides even
more impetus for considering these measures when classi-
fying early performance.
The present study directly tested the relative contribu-
tion of EF to both low and high academic performance
using cluster analysis, a discontinuous grouping methodol-
ogy. Cluster analysis has been frequently used to establish
groupings along many domains in educational research
(e.g., Myers & Fouts, 1992; Ronning, 2004; Ullrich-French
& Cox, 2009). Given the highly predictive relation between
achievement and EF, and yet the lack of research using both
cognitive and academic measures to group and track stu-
dents without disabilities, we assessed the benefits of com-
bining these measures to classify low performance.
Research Aims and Hypotheses
We explored classification strategies similar to those often
used in both research and education (e.g., for determining
special education eligibility). Although cutoff methods
have typically been used in studies classifying academic
and/or cognitive performance, the present study is novel in
its application of nonparametric cluster analysis methodol-
ogy. This allows us to differentiate students who display
non-arbitrarily dissimilar performance from peers. We
hope that this endeavor may help researchers and practitio-
ners alike to classify performance with better precision and
predictive validity.
Our first research aim was to identify the EF tasks that
contribute to the differentiation of low, average, and high
academic performance in early schooling. Our secondary
aim was to assess the longitudinal stability of cluster mem-
bership. This latter aim is especially important given
research indicating that students often remain in their edu-
cational track once placed and that tracking decisions are
not free of bias. Our two hypotheses were as follows. First,
because research has demonstrated that students with dis-
abilities experience a persistent failure to learn, we expected
to see a small group of students making little academic
growth over time and maintaining stable low performance.
Given the intensive intervention needed to remediate learn-
ing failure, we expected that membership in this low-per-
forming cluster would more stable than membership in the
average- or high-performing clusters. Second, in keeping
with prior research, we expected that EF skills would both
differentiate clusters and predict later cluster membership
(i.e., that Kindergarten EF would predict first-grade clus-
ters). We hypothesized this because attentional control and
response inhibition have previously been found to influence
both math and reading ability, and WM has been consis-
tently demonstrated to more strongly influence math than
reading (e.g., Blair & Razza, 2007; Nguyen & Duncan,
2018). Thus, we expected to see similar results.
Method
Sample
Data were drawn from two cohorts of children followed from
Kindergarten into first grade (n = 120; Kindergarten Mage =
5.8 years; first grade Mage = 6.8 years) as part of a longitudi-
nal study investigating the transition to school. The study
included four socioeconomically and racially diverse schools
in one Midwestern state. Socioeconomic disadvantage1 in the
student body ranged from 2.1% (School 1) to 87.4% (School
4), with a sample average of 56.1%. Nearly 58% of our sam-
ple was male. There was also considerable racial/ethnic
diversity within and between sampled schools, with study
participants attending schools that were on average 36.8%
White, 44.9% African American, 3.7% Hispanic, and 12.1%
Asian. Detailed descriptive sample ­statistics both within and
across schools are presented in Appendix A.
Procedure
Approval for human subjects research was obtained by an
Institutional Review Board prior to data collection, and par-
ents of participants and teachers provided informed consent
for supervised testing. Each child was assessed by trained
research assistants once in the spring of Kindergarten and
again in the spring of first grade using a battery of individu-
ally assessed EF tasks in quiet, unused, or multipurpose
rooms in schools. Standardized tests of academic achieve-
ment and EF skills were administered to all participants.
Teachers also provided information about whether study
participants were observed with concerns regarding a poten-
tial special educational need and/or whether study partici-
pants received special education services during the years of
data collection. On average, 26% of the study sample were
observed during Kindergarten or first grade. Concerns for
observation were low academic performance (15% of obser-
vations), behavior or emotional issues (11%), speech or lan-
guage problems (3%), potential Autism (2%), or other
concerns (2%). Of the low academic concerns, 53% were for
4 Journal of Learning Disabilities 00(0)

Table 1.  Descriptive Statistics for Analytical Measures.

Kindergarten First grade

Measure % Missing n M (SD) Range % Missing n M (SD) Range

WJ-III Letter-Word ID 0.0 120 114.13 (14.54) 86–164 0.0 120 113.54 (14.98) 78–149
WJ-III Passage Comp. 2.5 117 106.92 (13.47) 83–148 0.0 120 104.85 (11.98) 78–129
WJ-III Applied Problems 0.8 119 104.49 (15.42) 31–155 0.0 120 103.79 (13.74) 71–145
Number Line 20.8 95 3.18 (1.91) 0.79–9.48 5.0 114 2.51 (1.38) 0.59–8.09
Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders 0.8 119 28.51 (17.13) 0–56 0.8 119 43.74 (12.18) 0–59
WJ-III Pair Cancellation 3.3 116 102.86 (10.28) 62–123 3.3 116 103.50 (10.03) 82–142
Digit Span—Forward 0.0 120 6.66 (1.42) 2–11 0.0 120 6.97 (1.59) 4–11
Digit Span—Backward 2.5 118 2.05 (1.70) 0–7 0.8 119 3.29 (1.37) 0–6

Note. WJ-III Standard Scores are displayed.

low reading, 13% were for low mathematics, and 33% cited
both reading and mathematics issues. Eleven percent of the
sample received special education services in Kindergarten
or first grade. Services were delivered for speech/language
impairments (3%), learning disabilities (2%), emotional
impairments or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD) (2%), Autism (3%), or some other type of services
(2%). Interestingly, though School 3 reported the most
observational concerns about students (46%), they also
reported the fewest students receiving services (8%).
Missing Data
Of 140 students sampled in Kindergarten, 120 students
were tested again in first grade. The amount of data missing
from each subtest ranged from 0% to 6.7% (see Table 1),
with one exception: the number line task was missing
28.3% of data due to a protocol change implemented after
20 Kindergarten students had been tested, nullifying their
scores. Twenty-two students were missing data on certain
subtests due to school absences impeding data collection or
misbehavior/inattention during testing that rendered data
unusable, and eight of these students (36%) were reported
to have been observed for or received special education.
Unfortunately, data collectors experienced great difficulty
obtaining individual demographic information from parents
through online surveys, despite repeated efforts and incen-
tivizing. Thus, 69% to 74% of variables measuring partici-
pants’ race/ethnicity, maternal education, income, and free/
reduced lunch participation were missing data, and this was
concentrated in Schools 2 to 4. For this reason, we provide
school-level demographics in Appendix A, though we rec-
ognize this as a significant study limitation.
Measures
A variety of academic and behavioral assessments were
used to measure reading, math, and EF in both Kindergarten
and first grade (see Table 1 for descriptive statistics and
Appendix B for correlations). Select tests were adminis-
tered from the Woodcock Johnson-III Tests of Achievement
(WJ-III; Mather & Woodcock, 2001) and WJ-III Tests of
Cognitive Ability (Woodcock & Mather, 2000). These types
of standardized, normed tests are often used to identify
gifted students and/or ability–achievement discrepancies
for special education referral, so they are ideal for classify-
ing performance clusters. Raw scores on the WJ-III tests
were converted into standard scores (which are nationally
norm-referenced to M = 100, SD = 15) based on when in
the school year testing occurred. The same tests were given
in both Kindergarten and first grade, and the testing battery
was counterbalanced both within and across students.
Academic achievement.  Reading performance was measured
using two WJ-III tests: Letter-Word Identification, which
assesses basic reading ability, and Passage Comprehension,
which measures the ability to identify words in a sentence
using contextual clues. Mathematics performance was
assessed using two tasks: the WJ-III test of Applied Prob-
lems, which captures skill in analyzing and solving practical
word problems; and the Number Line task (adapted from
Siegler & Booth, 2004), which is often associated with gen-
eral mathematics achievement. This test assesses students’
sense of number magnitude by asking students to mark the
location of numbers on a line ranging from 0 to 20. Research-
ers then measured the distance away from the number’s true
location in centimeters such that higher scores correspond to
a poorer sense of number magnitude (e.g., a score of 3.50
would indicate that the student’s mark was three and a half
centimeters away from the true location of the assessed
number, and would be considered a poorer score than a score
of 1.50). These scores were then averaged together across 16
number trials (one for each number 1–19, excluding 5, 10,
and 15, which were used as trials). The sample range was
0.79 to 9.48 in Kindergarten, and 0.59 to 8.09 in first grade.
Reliabilities were 0.87 in both Kindergarten and first grade.
Woods et al. 5
EF
Attention Control.  The Pair Cancellation task, which is
a measure drawn from the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests
of Cognitive Abilities (Woodcock & Mather, 2000), was
used to test children’s attention control. In this task, chil-
dren were presented with a testing sheet with small pic-
tures of dogs, balls, and cups, and asked to circle all of
the ball–dog pairs in which a dog is presented after a ball.
After practicing to ensure that the child understood the
task, they were given 3 min to complete the rest of the
page, working as quickly as they could without making
mistakes. There were 69 correct pairs, and the number of
correct pairs identified within 3 min was recorded. In this
study, we used W scores representing children’s ability
level based on the Rasch measurement model, which pro-
vided comparative scores for each child, regardless of age.
Test–retest reliability for this subtest is r = .78 (Mather &
Woodcock, 2001).
Response inhibition.  Response inhibition was ­measured
using the Head-to-Toes, Knees-to-Shoulders task (HTKS;
Ponitz et al., 2008), a game like Simon Says, in which
students are instructed to touch the opposite body part
than the one named by the researcher (e.g., when the
researcher says to touch their head, they touch their toes).
The task became increasingly challenging across 30 trials
in three blocks (touching heads and toes, touching knees
and shoulders, and a mix of the two). Incorrect responses
were scored with a 0, 1 for a self-corrected response, and
2 for a correct response. The maximum score was 60. The
internal consistency in the current study (Cronbach’s α)
is 0.83 in Kindergarten and 0.73 in first grade. Reliability
among overall scores obtained by different experimenters
was 100%.
WM. The Counting Span subtest of the Weschler scales
(1991) was administered to gauge short-term and WM
skills, as the task requires the recall and manipulation of
information stored in memory. This task was composed
of two sections in which the instructor says a list of num-
bers and the participant was asked to recite the numbers
forward and backwards. The list of numbers increases by
one item for every correct response, and the largest set was
six. If the participant answered incorrectly twice in a row,
the researcher moved onto the next section. A score was
assigned based upon the largest set at which the child suc-
cessfully reported. This measure demonstrates acceptable
test–retest reliability (r = .73; Lipsey et al., 2017). Short-
term memory (forward digit span) ranged from 2 to 11 in
Kindergarten and 4 to 11 in first grade, while WM (back-
ward digit span) ranged from 0 to 7 in Kindergarten and 0
to 8 in first grade. Although this is a common WM test used
in educational research, it is important to note that it only
assessed verbal WM and not visuospatial WM.
Analytic Methods
Cluster analysis is a data-driven approach that allows stu-
dents who are most alike to naturally cluster together into
multidimensional groups instead of imposing group mem-
bership upon them. Heterogeneous samples are reorganized
into smaller, more homogeneous clusters that are maxi-
mally similar within-group and maximally dissimilar across
groups (Aldenderfer & Blashfield, 1984; Antonenko, Toy,
& Niederhauser, 2012; Ronning, 2004). Hierarchical clus-
tering algorithms sequentially combine each case with other
clusters to construct a hierarchy of nested groups. They are
useful when researchers do not have a preconceived idea
about how many clusters to expect and want to explore how
data cluster with few constraints, or if they have a relatively
small sample size (Antonenko et al., 2012). Our goal was to
determine whether three groups naturally emerge from data
collected in early elementary samples. We were interested
in this question because many previous studies had imposed
artificial cutoffs to create three distinct groups for analysis
of “low” versus “average” or “high” performers, but
whether this approach is valid is unclear (i.e., whether these
data cluster in this manner without constraint). Moreover, in
the event that three distinct groups did not emerge from the
data without constraints, we questioned whether it was pos-
sible to obtain a three-group solution by including measures
of EF given their relation to academic achievement. This
second aim was important because although EF has been
suggested to be highly related to both strengths and deficits
in academic performance, it is empirically unclear whether
measures of cognitive skills can aid in distinguishing both
low and high performance. If three groups did not emerge
with or without the use of EF in these exploratory cluster
analyses, then it is possible that there are not three distinct
groups of low, average, and high performance during early
schooling, which is an important consideration for both
educators and researchers alike. We conducted an explor-
atory two-step cluster analysis in SPSS v. 24. This is a
method that first groups and organizes the data in a quick
pass and then applies a hierarchical clustering algorithm to
arrive at a final solution. Cluster proximity was assessed
using the log-likelihood linking algorithm given differences
in subtest scales, and cases were arranged in a random order
prior to clustering.
Results
Classifying Performance Using Cluster Analysis
Our main goal was to identify the cognitive and academic
tasks that differentiate early schooling performance into low,
average, and high groups without artificially imposing group
membership upon students (e.g., using cutoffs). We entered
different combinations of both cognitive and academic assess-
ments into the clustering algorithm in an exploratory attempt
6 Journal of Learning Disabilities 00(0)
Figure 1.  Cluster sample sizes by subject and by grade.
to discover which combinations naturally produced three per-
formance groups. First, the eight subtests were standardized to
a sample mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1 to permit com-
parisons across task. Cluster analysis of all eight tasks resulted
in only two clusters corresponding to above- and below-aver-
age performance. We suspect that these eight tests may over-
saturate the clustering algorithm such that meaningful patterns
in the data do not emerge. In other words, EF may function
differently across tests of reading and mathematics, and these
differences go unobserved when all eight tests are simultane-
ously included in a clustering algorithm.
We then separated the reading (Letter-Word Identification
and Passage Comprehension) and mathematics tasks (Applied
Problems and Number Line) and ran a series of cluster analy-
ses on each in combination with the EF tests (Pair Cancellation,
HTKS, DS-F, and DS-B) to ascertain what combination of
measures produced groups of low, average, and high perfor-
mance in reading and mathematics, respectively. Because
most prior research imposes these three-group solutions onto
their data, we were interested in understanding whether it was
possible to obtain three groups either alone or in combination
with these EF tasks. Cluster sizes are represented in Figure 1,
and mean subtest scores within each cluster are represented in
Figures 2 and 3. The results are as follows.
Reading.  A three-cluster solution emerged for the Kindergar-
ten reading data when combined with all four EF measures
(N = 110; see Figure 1); cluster membership was driven pri-
marily by performance on the Letter-Word Identification
task, followed by DS-B, Passage Comprehension, HTKS,
DS-F, and Pair Cancellation. Most students displayed rela-
tively average performance (n = 53), while smaller groups
displayed lower-than-average (n = 38) and higher-than-aver-
age (n = 19) performance. Figure 2 displays standardized
mean task performance for each group within the Kindergar-
ten reading cluster. Notably, the average-performing group
had slightly below-average mean scores on the two reading
subtests, but slightly higher-than-average performance on all
four EF subtests. This may indicate that EF more strongly
differentiates low from average readers. Indeed, when the EF
tasks were removed from the cluster analysis, the algorithm
was unable to differentiate average from low performance
and produced only two clusters of above- and below-average
students (Appendix C, see Figure C1).
This same pattern was evident in first grade, though a
three-cluster solution was observed only for a combination
of Letter-Word Identification, Passage Comprehension,
DS-F, and DS-B (N = 119). Including HTKS and Pair
Cancelation in the cluster analysis produced a two-cluster
solution (see Appendix C, see Figure C2), suggesting that
whereas all four EF measures helped to distinguish three
different literacy-ability groups in Kindergarten, only the
memory measures (DS-F and DS-B) continue to aid group
differentiation into first grade. Unlike Kindergarten,
Passage Comprehension primarily drove cluster member-
ship, followed by Letter-Word Identification, DS-B, and
DS-F. Most students again displayed average performance
(n = 49), though there were relatively more high perform-
ers (n = 40) than low performers (n = 30) in first grade.
The pattern of mean scores by subtest was also similar to
Kindergarten (see Figure 2).
Several demographic features differed across reading
clusters in both Kindergarten and first grade (e.g., male sex,
school attended; see Table 2). Most relevantly, more than
half of students who were observed for or received special
education services were in the low-performing groups,
though these statistics were only significant in first grade.
Mathematics. A three-cluster solution emerged for math
performance in both Kindergarten (n = 94) and first grade
(n = 114) without including any EF subtests in the cluster-
ing algorithm. In both grades, Number Line contributed
most strongly to cluster membership, followed by Applied
Problems. There were no significant differences between
the low (n = 28) and average (n = 49) Kindergarteners on
the Applied Problems task, and no differences between the
average and high (n = 17) Kindergarteners on the Number
Line task (see Figure 3). This trend is similar in first grade,
with no differences between the low (n = 32) and average
(n = 60) performers on the Applied Problems task, and no
Woods et al. 7

Figure 2. Mean z-scores of the tests used to create reading cluster membership at Kindergarten and first grade.

Figure 3. Mean z-scores of the tests used to create mathematics cluster membership at Kindergarten and first grade.
8 Journal of Learning Disabilities 00(0)

Table 2.  Demographic Differences by Cluster.

Reading Math

Demographic and measure Low (a) Average (b) High (c) Low (a) Average (b) High (c)
Kindergarten (n = 38) (n = 53) (n = 19) (n = 28) (n = 49) (n = 17)
  % Observed for Special Ed. 51.9 33.3 14.8 30.4 60.9 8.7
  % Received Special Ed. 60.0 20.0 20.0 33.3 50.0 16.7
  % Male 37.1 38.7c 24.2b 26.9 50.0 23.1
  % School 1 4.2bc 41.7a 54.2a 16.7ab 38.9c 44.4c
  % School 2 36.8 57.9 5.3 34.4 48.6 17.1
  % School 3 59.1c 40.9 0.0a 25.0 65.0 10.0
  % School 4 40.0 48.0 12.0 40.0 60.0 0.0
  M (SD) Age at Testing 5.80 (.46) 5.83 (.31) 5.93 (.36) 5.67 (.36) 5.85 (.37) 5.84 (.36)
First Grade (n = 30) (n = 49) (n = 40) (n = 22) (n = 60) (n = 32)
  % Observed for Special Ed. 45.2c 35.5 19.4a 20.0 53.3 26.7
  % Received Special Ed. 66.7bc 16.7a 16.7a 18.2 45.5 36.4
  % Male 23.9 31.3c 44.8b 17.7 46.8 35.5
  % School 1 10.0c 20.0c 70.0ab 0.0c 25.0c 75.0ab
  % School 2 17.5 55.0 27.5 17.9 61.5 20.5
  % School 3 50.0c 37.5 12.5a 31.8 63.6 4.5
  % School 4 16.7 50.0 33.3 32.0c 60.0 8.0a
  M (SD) Age at Testing 6.87 (.32) 6.84 (.35) 6.84 (.32) 6.86 (.33) 6.83 (.31) 6.90 (.29)

Note. Subscript denotes columns that significantly differ from each other at the p < .05 level.

differences between the average and high (n = 22) perform- Table 3.  Stability of Cluster Membership from Kindergarten to
ers on the Number Line task. In other words, membership in First Grade.
the low groups at both grades seems to be characterized by First-grade cluster
poor number magnitude, while membership in the high
groups is driven by very high Applied Problems scores. Kindergarten cluster High (%) Average (%) Low (%)
Including all four EF tests in mathematics clusters pro- Reading High 100.0 0.0 0.0
duced a two-cluster solution of above- and below-average Average 23.1 63.5 13.5
performance. Thus, we suspect that mathematics may be Low 13.2 31.6 55.3
related to EF in a more domain-specific manner (i.e., related Mathematics High 73.3 26.7 0.0
to distinct EF tasks like WM or response inhibition) than to Average 21.7 58.7 19.6
global EF. To further explore this, each EF task was sepa- Low 7.1 60.7 32.1
rately included with the two mathematics subtests. Only
first grade HTKS (response inhibition) differentiated groups
beyond an above- or below-average clustering solution, as special education services or who were observed with concerns
it revealed more nuances in the low-performing mathemat- were in the low-performing group in Kindergarten, and this
ics group than were identified by previous analyses. number dropped to less than 20% in first grade (though no esti-
Including only HTKS with the two mathematics measures mates were statistically significant).
revealed four distinct groups (see Appendix C, see Figure
C3). Again, there appeared to be an average (n = 42) and Stability of cluster membership.  Our second research aim was
high (n = 28) group, but now there appeared two distinct to assess the stability of clusters across the K-1 transition. A
low-performing groups. Although both displayed poor cross-tabulation is presented in Table 3, wherein the diagonal
Applied Problems performance, the first group also dis- corresponds to stable group membership through first grade,
played a very poor sense of number magnitude (number or, students who were clustered into the same group during
line; n = 17), while the second group displayed very poor both study years. Contrary to our hypothesis, high perfor-
response inhibition (HTKS; n = 26). mance was more stable during the first 2 years of schooling
At both Kindergarten and first grade, Mathematics cluster than was lower or average performance. One hundred per-
membership significantly differed according to the school stu- cent of the high-performing Kindergarteners for reading
dents attended, but not by sex or age (see Table 2). However, remained high-performing in first grade, and nearly three
and unlike reading, only a third of students who received quarters remained high-performing for math; none dropped
Woods et al. 9

Table 4.  Using Kindergarten Executive Function (EF) Tasks to Predict First-Grade Achievement Cluster Membership.

First-grade reading First-grade mathematics

EF Task Low (a) Average (b) High (c) F(2, 101) Partial η2 Low (a) Average (b) High (c) F(2, 99) Partial η2
Pair 0.06 0.05 −0.15 0.23 .004 −0.03 −0.20 0.32 1.79 .035
cancellation
HTKS −0.34 0.22 −0.06 3.07 .057 −0.66bc 0.09a 0.23a 5.79** .105
DS-F −0.74bc 0.05a 0.41a 8.72*** .147 −0.29 0.04 0.06 1.01 .020
DS-B −0.49b 0.07a 0.14 3.82* .070 −0.80bc −0.03ac 0.55ab 13.04*** .208

Note. Marginal means displayed. Subscript denotes column proportions that differ significantly at the p < .05 level. Post hoc comparisons adjusted using
the Sidak and Holm corrections. Analyses control for gender, school, and prior achievement. Reading: Wilks’ Lambda = .784, F(8, 196) = 3.177,
p = .002, partial η2= .115. Math: Wilks’ Lambda = .719, F(8, 192) = 4.297, p = .000, partial η2 = .152. HTKS = Head-to-Toes, Knees-to-Shoulders
task (Ponitz et al., 2008), DS-F = Digit-Span Forward, DS-B = Digit Span Backward (Weschler, 1991).
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

into either low-performing group. In contrast, 63.5% and
55% of the average- and low-reading groups remained stable
into first grade, respectively, compared with 58.7% and
32.1% of the average- and low-math groups. More students
apparently remained stable or improved cluster membership
than dropped in performance across the transition to first
grade. This is especially true for those who were in the low-
mathematics cluster in Kindergarten, as over two-thirds
improved to the average- or high-performing groups.
To understand which students changed cluster member-
ship across the first 2 years of schooling, we computed dif-
ference scores between each first grade and Kindergarten
subtest, which were then standardized for comparability.
Briefly, students who dropped into a lower performing clus-
ter (labeled “dropped”) exhibited significantly less growth
than students who remained in the same cluster (“stable”)
and vice versa for students who moved into a better-per-
forming cluster (“improved”). Appendix D contains further
description of which students exhibited stability and which
changed cluster membership.
Analysis of Group Differences
Finally, we conducted two multivariate analyses of covari-
ance (MANCOVA) to assess whether and how Kindergarten
EF differentiated first-grade cluster membership while con-
trolling for demographic characteristics (sex and school
attended) and Kindergarten math and reading achievement
(see Table 4). After correcting for multiple comparisons using
the Holm–Bonferroni method, both Kindergarten digit span
tasks predicted first-grade reading cluster membership (DS-F
Effect Size [ES] = .15; DS-B ES = .07), while the HTKS and
DS-B tasks predicted first-grade mathematics cluster mem-
bership (HTKS ES = .11; DS-B ES = .21). Examination of
the ESs confirms our hypothesis that WM (DS-B) influenced
both academic subjects but more strongly influenced mathe-
matics. However, our hypothesis that attentional control (Pair
Cancellation) and inhibitory control (HTKS) would influence
both mathematical and reading ability was not supported
(though inhibitory control did influence mathematics). Post
hoc comparisons revealed that these effects were largely
driven by the low-performing clusters, which were signifi-
cantly different from both the average- and high-performing
groups on all EF tasks. No Kindergarten EF task significantly
differentiated first-grade average- and high- performing
groups except for DS-B, which significantly differed across
all first-grade mathematics clusters.
Discussion
The present study examined performance classifications
using cognitive and academic measures during the transi-
tion to early schooling. We sought to better understand how
cognitive tasks can aid non-arbitrary classification of aca-
demic performance into low-, average-, and high-perfor-
mance groups. We generally found that using cognitive
measures helped to classify low-reading performance in
both Kindergarten and first grade, but not mathematics per-
formance. The high-performing groups exhibited more sta-
bility into first grade than the average- or low-performing
groups. We also found that cognitive skills uniquely differ-
entiated both concurrent and future academic classifica-
tions. Each of these findings is discussed further below.
Cluster Analysis of Both Cognitive and Academic
Measures Sometimes Helps Differentiate Low
Performance
Our primary research focus was to explore the efficacy of
using cluster analysis to differentiate academic performance
classifications in early schooling, specifically with respect to
low performance and in combination with cognitive data.
Cluster analysis presents a simple solution to the problem of
arbitrary cutoff methodologies and may thus yield more
meaningful groupings in academic data. Because many prior
studies have investigated how EF was related to low, aver-
age, or high performance, we investigated whether including
these measures would further differentiate the data into the
10 Journal of Learning Disabilities 00(0)
three groups often arbitrarily assigned in other research. We
conceptualized the inclusion of these EF measures as a form
of validation, but found that EF measures only sometimes
aided in distinguishing three distinct clusters. Many of our
attempts at clustering these measures resulted in two-group
solutions of “below” or “above” average performance. Thus,
it may be that there are not three “natural” clusters of low/
average/high during early elementary school, even though
many researchers have constrained their data to behave in
this way. This result has strong implications for educators
tracking and observing students at these grade levels, par-
ticularly given the relative instability of these designations
through first grade. Our results also imply that researchers
who use cutoff methodologies may artificially impose group
membership upon students, particularly for low-performing
groups and among literacy measures that are not used in
conjunction with cognitive data.
The Role of EF in Low, Average, and High
Academic Classifications
Although continuous measurements typically reveal signifi-
cant and positive relationships between achievement and EF
(see correlations in Appendix B as an example), these meth-
ods do little to explain how these constructs are related. Most
of the significant differences between our groups were driven
by the low-performing clusters, aligning our results with pre-
vious literature linking EF deficits rather than strengths to
achievement. However, in the three-group cluster solutions
that we present here, we note that average-performing readers
were (a) indistinguishable from low-performing readers with-
out the addition of EF measures and (b) displayed EF skills
more alike the high performers than the low performers.
Moreover, including a measure of response inhibition (HTKS)
with the first-grade mathematics subtests revealed further
nuances among low performers, though not among the aver-
age- or high-performing groups. This differentiation illus-
trates the heterogeneity behind low achievement and may
help explain why certain students perform poorly, thereby
illuminating potential avenues for future intervention.
We expected that EF would play a large role in differentiat-
ing mathematics and reading cluster membership at each
grade. This hypothesis was supported at both grades for the
reading clusters, but not for the mathematics clusters. It is pos-
sible that EF (and, specifically, memory) contributes more
globally to reading performance than to mathematics perfor-
mance. Some prior research has only linked WM to advanced
mathematics skills involving combinations of numbers and
quantities (Purpura et al., 2017), a level that many of our sam-
pled students might not yet have achieved. In contrast, there
may be more domain-specific EF heterogeneity in low first-
grade mathematics performance. This may be especially evi-
dent for response inhibition given the emergence of four
clusters when including HTKS, two of which were specific to
low performance. This is also consistent with prior research
finding that response inhibition is closely linked to most com-
ponents of mathematics skill (Purpura et al., 2017).
Kindergarten EF also significantly predicted first-grade
cluster membership for both academic subjects. Consistent
with our expectations, ESs for mathematics were larger than
for reading. Although we also expected to see attention control
and inhibitory control predict later performance in both sub-
jects, this hypothesis was not supported. It may be that these
relations were reduced to nonsignificance after accounting for
WM, which is consistent with some recent investigations
regarding the role of EF components on academic outcomes
(e.g., Ahmed et al., 2019; Nguyen & Duncan, 2018).
Alternatively, the tasks used in this study may differ from those
used in prior research finding these significant relations, which
call into question the replicability of these constructs.
Our findings also reinforce a growing body of literature
underscoring the unique importance of WM for children’s
academic skills. Specifically, we found that WM was sig-
nificantly related to later reading and mathematics after
controlling for early achievement and that it significantly
differentiated low performance from average and high per-
formance. This supports prior connections between WM
deficits and struggling learners (e.g., Gathercole et al.,
2016). An alternative explanation is that Kindergarten WM
is predicting first-grade WM within the reading clusters,
since digit span tasks were used in the first-grade reading
cluster analysis. We find this less likely because Kindergarten
WM only predicted differences between low and average
reading in first grade, and not high reading. Moreover, EF
tasks were not used in the creation of the mathematics clus-
ters, and we see that WM significantly predicted all three
groups. Our results invite future research to better examine
the extent to which WM and other EF measures relate to
non-arbitrarily-determined achievement classifications
(ideally within larger, nationally representative samples).
Because cluster analyses may allow a more nuanced and
natural approach to group differences, researchers should
especially consider this method to explore connections
between deficits in EF and poor achievement.
High Performance is More Stable than Average
or Low Performance
Relevant to research on and debate around educational track-
ing, we also investigated the stability of performance classifi-
cations across the K-1 transition. Given extensive
documentation of low-performing, intervention-resistant stu-
dents who later receive special education services, we
expected the most stability among low performers. However,
when exploring three-group solutions, results instead revealed
that membership in the high-performance group was more
stable than the average- or low-performing groups. Thus, it
may be easier to objectively measure and classify young
gifted students than young struggling students, particularly
when cognitive and reading skills are both measured.
Woods et al. 11

Theoretically, it may be more common to measure “flukes” in
low performance than in high performance without repeated
testing (e.g., a student may just have a bad day during testing,
and this could make them seem like a poorer performer but
probably would not make them seem like a higher performer).
Researchers and educators may want to revisit how low per-
formers are differentiated from students with disabilities in
early schooling given this instability.
Our results also suggest that teachers and special educa-
tors focus more on literacy problems than mathematics
problems during early schooling, especially when observ-
ing students for potential special educational needs. It is
therefore unsurprising that more low-reading students
received special education services than low-mathematics
students. In addition, and perhaps validating teachers’ focus
on early literacy deficits, membership in the low-perform-
ing reading group was more stable through first grade than
the low-performing mathematics group. It is possible that
students received special education services because they
had higher mathematics skills than reading skills, following
the ability–achievement discrepancy model of learning dis-
abilities. Future research investigating the consequences of
this phenomenon is warranted, particularly among students
eventually diagnosed with a mathematics disability.
Study Limitations and Conclusion
A significant limitation of this study was our inability to obtain
individual demographic information, which we might have
used to further externally validate these cluster solutions.
Students attending schools with the least overall socioeco-
nomic disadvantage (who were, presumably, the least disad-
vantaged themselves) displayed the best academic
performance in both grades. However, it is unclear to what
extent this trend is associated with a student’s school or their
individual demographic background, and both are likely
influential. We also caution against over-generalizing these
results, given the relatively small and geographically limited
nature of the present sample. We may not have had a large
enough sample to capture a group of low-performing, treat-
ment-resistant students, which would explain why high per-
formance appeared more stable than low performance. A
larger, nationally representative study would help establish
whether our findings remain consistent for most schools and
students.
Yet, we also offer counterpoints to these limitations that
we believe validate our results. First, our sample is drawn
from diverse racial and socioeconomic locations, which
bolsters generalization to other diverse samples. Second,
deficits in performance are most likely to be observed in
high-risk, diverse schools, like those included in our sam-
ple. Third and finally, we argue that teachers may experi-
ence similar data issues, namely that there may also be a
very small cohort of low-performing, intervention-resistant
youth within their elementary schools. Future research
methods should explore the accuracy and reliability of early
classifications of these students despite their small sample
size within grades and schools.
Despite these issues, few would question that existing
classification and grouping schemes are arbitrary and that
there is little evidence they are robust to alternative specifi-
cations. This study demonstrates the utility of combining
cluster analysis with cognitive measures to examine early
childhood performance classifications. Students without a
formal Individualized Education Program (IEP) may still
struggle under the typical curricula, so it is important to bol-
ster the ability to better identify these students early in
schooling. We hope that further research will continue to
prioritize the use of available cognitive and academic per-
formance data to better serve these learners.

Appendix A
Sample Demographic Information.

Demographic School 1 (n = 30) School 2 (n = 40) School 3 (n = 24) School 4 (n = 25) Total (N = 120)
Male (% of sample) 63.3 55.0 54.2 48.0 57.7
Percentage of school 2.1 65.3 69.4 87.4 56.1
disadvantaged
White (%) 45.7 40.5 46.9 14.1 36.8
Black (%) 4.2 47.9 44.5 82.9 44.9
Hispanic (%) 3.1 4.8 4.1 2.8 3.7
Asian (%) 45.3 2.3 0.7 0.0 12.1
Age—Kindergarten: M (SD) 5.71 (.31) 5.82 (.36) 5.74 (.44) 5.94 (.40) 5.80 (.38)
Age—First Grade: M (SD) 6.80 (.30) 6.81 (.30) 6.83 (.37) 6.95 (.38) 6.84 (.34)
Observed for Special Ed (%) 30.0 12.5 45.8 24.0 26.9
Received Special Ed (%) 16.7 5.0 8.3 12.0 10.8

Note. Data about schools were drawn from information made publicly available on statewide education reporting websites. Socioeconomic disadvantage
was defined by this website as “those who have been determined to be eligible for free or reduced-price meals via locally gathered and approved family
applications under the National School Lunch Program, are in households receiving food (SNAP) or cash (TANF) assistance, are homeless, are migrant, or
are in foster care.”
 12

Appendix B
Correlations Among Study Variables.

Study Variables (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15)
(1) K Passage Comp.  
(2) First Passage Comp. .613***  
(3) K Letter-Word ID .756*** .666***  
(4) First Letter-Word ID .618*** .871*** .759***  
(5) K Applied Probs. .517*** .609*** .630*** .616***  
(6) First Applied Probs. .516*** .666*** .583*** .598*** .668***  
(7) K Number Line −.089 −.096 −.233* −.104 −.404*** −.288**  
(8) First Number Line −.203* −.219* −.349*** −.222* −.405*** −.461*** .294**  
(9) K Pair Cancel. .240** .187* .298*** .172 .273** .263** −.279** −.121  
(10) First Pair Cancel. .282** .313*** .285** .255** .403*** .374*** −.017 −.087 .532***  
(11) K HTKS .291** .116 .331*** .111 .440*** .268** −.151 −.288** .157 .160  
(12) First HTKS .273** .190* .278** .163 .260** .247** −.094 −.045 .170 .219* .391***  
(13) K Digit Span–F .249** .399*** .348*** .353*** .438*** .337*** .021 −.264** .037 .106 .121 .152  
(14) First Digit Span–F .245** .346*** .317*** .343*** .444*** .357*** −.021 −.237* .058 .098 .129 .148 .681***  
(15) K Digit Span–B .441*** .406*** .514*** .406*** .572*** .508*** −.454*** −.480*** .297*** .194* .342*** .329*** .333*** .346***  
(16) First Digit Span–B .349*** .424*** .413*** .366*** .574*** .467*** −.155 −.276** .266** .356*** .238* .265** .385*** .344*** .487***

Note. K = Kindergarten; first = first grade; HTKS = Head-to-Toes, Knees-to-Shoulders task.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Journal of Learning Disabilities 00(0)
Woods et al. 13

Appendix C
Alternative cluster analyses with varied measures

Figure C1.  Reading clusters formed in Kindergarten and first grade without including any EF tests.
Note. EF = executive function.

Figure C2.  First-grade reading clusters formed by including all four EF tests.
Note. EF = executive function.
14 Journal of Learning Disabilities 00(0)

Figure C3. Mean z-scores of tests used in first-grade mathematics cluster analysis (with HTKS).
Note. HTKS = Head-to-Toes, Knees-to-Shoulders task.

Appendix D students generally made growth between Kindergarten and

Descriptive Statistics (% or M) Regarding
Change in Group Membership Across the
K–Grade 1 Transition
To further explore the stability of cluster membership and
which students changed clusters between Kindergarten and
first grade, descriptive statistics are presented below.
Students who remained in the same performance cluster
from year to year were labeled Stable (e.g., “average” in
Kindergarten and “average” in first grade), students who
dropped into a lower performing cluster were labeled
Dropped, and students who improved to a higher performing
level were labeled Improved. The unstandardized difference
scores (see Note) in the following reveal that (a) overall,
first grade and (b) cluster membership was driven by growth
differences on certain assessments. Students who Dropped
exhibited significantly less growth across the K–Grade 1
transition, while students who Improved exhibited more
growth than their Stable counterparts. Whereas reading clus-
ter stability was affected by both reading tasks and DS-B,
math cluster stability was only affected by Number Line per-
formance. Although not statistically significant, more stu-
dents who were observed with concerns regarding a potential
special educational need appeared to improve their cluster
membership between Kindergarten and first grade. It may be
that observing these students actually led to improvement
over time—a causal hypothesis that warrants future research
with the appropriate data.
Woods et al. 15

Note
For the four WJ-III tests, we used raw scores instead of standard scores to more accurately see growth patterns.

Reading (n = 109) Math (n = 89) Unstandardized

average
Dropped Stable Improved Dropped Stable Improved difference
Measure (a) (n = 7) (b) (n = 73) (c) (n = 29) (a) (n = 22) (b) (n = 60) (c) (n = 32) M (SD)
% Observed for Special Ed. 11.1 63.0 25.9 8.7 65.2 26.1 —
% Received Special Ed. 0.0 100 0.0 16.7 50.0 33.3 —
% Male 3.2 66.1 30.6 14.6 50 35.4 —
% School 1 4.2 70.8 25.0 0.0 58.8 41.2 —
% School 2 2.6 63.2 34.2 14.7 52.9 32.4 —
% School 3 9.1 68.2 22.7 27.8 50.0 22.2 —
% School 4 12.5 66.7 20.8 15.0 50.0 35.0 —
LWID −.58c −.16c .66ab — — — 13.52 (6.27)
Passage Comprehension −.42c −.20c .67ab — — — 8.32 (4.13)
Pair Cancellation −.20 −.10 .21 .30 −.10 .08 12.56 (8.55)
HTKS −.25 −.10 .42 .13 −.02 −.07 11.96 (13.32)
DS-F −.48 .05 .14 −.06 .06 .14 0.31 (1.23)
DS-B −.70c −.14c .64ab .23 .07 .08 1.26 (1.59)
Applied Problems — — — −.43 .04 .14 5.69 (3.38)
Number Line — — — −1.02bc −.24ac .85ab 0.66 (2.05)

Note. Subscript denotes column proportions that differ significantly at the p < .05 level. Subtests listed are difference scores, computed by
subtracting the Kindergarten score from the first-grade score and then z-scoring for comparability across tests. LWID = Letter-Word Identification,
HTKS = Head-to-Toes, Knees-to-Shoulders task, DS-F = Digit Span Forward, DS-B = Digit Span Backward.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests from early childhood to adolescence. Journal of Educational

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This
work was supported by the National Science Foundation under
grant number 1356118.
ORCID iD
Adrienne D. Woods https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1101-6975
Note
1. Data about schools were drawn from information made pub-
licly available on statewide education reporting websites.
Socioeconomic disadvantage was defined by this website as
“those who have been determined to be eligible for free or
reduced-price meals via locally gathered and approved fam-
ily applications under the National School Lunch Program,
are in households receiving food (SNAP) or cash (TANF)
assistance, are homeless, are migrant, or are in foster care.
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