Table 1.

Information about level 1 independent variables

Variable	Survey Question Used	Coding	Justification
Free or Reduced Price Meals (FRPM)	1) How many people are living or staying at this address? 2) What is your yearly total household income for 2011 before taxes (1=Less than $1,999 to 15=$150,000 or more)?” We used US Food and Nutrition Service of US Department of Agriculture guidelines to construct the FRPM variable.	0=not qualifying for free or reduced price meals; 1=qualifying for free or reduced price meals	Economic deprivation has been linked to decreased academic performance (Reardon and Galindo 2009; Magzamen et al., 2015).
Mother’s Education	What is the highest level of schooling that you have completed?	1 year to 21 years	Children with well-educated mothers tend to perform better in school than do those with less educated mothers (Ruijsbroek et al., 2015).
Teen Mother	1) What is your age? 2) What is the child’s age? Mother’s current age was subtracted from child’s current age.	1=teenage mother (19 and younger); 0=not a teenage mother (20 years and older).	Children born to teen mothers fare worse in school (Levine, Pollack and Comfort, 2001; Magnuson 2007).
Race/ethnicity: Hispanic or Non-Hispanic Black	1) Are you of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?” 2) “What is your race?”	1=Hispanic; 0=no 1=non-Hispanic black; 0=no	There is an achievement gap between students of color and white students (Kao and Thompson 2003; Reardon and Galindo 2009).
Mother’s English Proficiency	How well do you speak English?	0=not at all; 1=not well; 2=well; and 3=very well.	Mothers who are not proficient in English may be less able to help their children with homework and/or less familiar with the US public school system and its expectations (Reardon and Galindo 2009).
Child’s Age	What is the child’s age?	8 to 13	Older children do better in school than younger children (Crosser 1991).
Child’s Sex	What is the child’s sex?	0=female; 1=male	Girls do better in school than boys (Fortin et al. 2015; Magzamen et al., 2015).