LEGEND

Green = Passed

Purple = Incomplete
Maroon = Exempt

Pin k= Absent
Red = Failed

Grey = Grade 2 or lower

When do children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds start falling behind? To try to answer this question, we’ve focused on performance on the Grade 3 standards tests. By Grade 3, children from low-SES neighbourhoods were already much less likely to be performing well – that is, passing the Grade 3 standards test at an age-appropriate time. Looking only at the performance of those who wrote the test, the differences across socioeconomic groups do not seem very large (graph on left-hand side).

Once again, this does not tell the whole story. To see the complete picture we identified all children born in Manitoba in 1990 and living in Winnipeg in the 1998-99 school year who should have been writing the grade 3 standards test that year (graph on right-hand side). Only 50% of those living in low-SES neighbourhoods passed the test on schedule, compared to 84% of those living in Winnipeg’s high-SES neighbourhoods. Additionally, almost 15% of students living in low-SES neighbourhoods were enrolled in Grade 2 or lower and, compared to other neighbourhoods, more failed the test, did not complete it, were exempt from it or were absent on the day when it was written.