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Using Preschool To Close The Socioeconomic Math Achievement Gap, Sydney King

Senior Honors Theses

Socioeconomic status (SES) heavily influences students’ academic performance, creating an achievement gap in core subjects like reading and mathematics. This thesis will describe the socioeconomic achievement gap as it relates to mathematics specifically, discuss the problem’s causes, and propose how preschool programs should be implemented more prevalently as a solution to close the gap. Children with low socioeconomic statuses enter school with lower math proficiency due to their limited math exposure in their early years and the quality of their home learning environments. This thesis will propose an expansion of preschool programs as a solution to this problem to help …