Eli G
11/10/14
Blog Post: Minority Achievement Gap at BHS
I’ve discussed the minority Achievement Gap in a previous
post, but this past week in my social justice class we were shown a power point
that revealed discrepancy between students of color/white students and
low-income vs. high income students.
What we found was that higher income students tend to do
better academically in school because they tend to have parents who are
proficient in English, have expectations and the money to put their kids
through college, higher expectations from teachers, better communication with
the school etc. Interviews done by the Sagamore (the school newspaper)
demonstrated consistent reports from students of color, particularly black and
hispanic students that they feel uncomfortable in higher level classes for two
reasons. One, a higher population of black and Hispanic students are tracked
into standard level classes, people like to be with people similar to them, at
least some. And second, these students mentioned that there is a pressure in
dominantly white, high level classes to disprove stereotypes. Anyhow I want to
share some facts that the power point showed: Again this is specific to BHS!
-
Hispanic/Latino Students are twice as likely as
white students to drop out of high school
-
Black students had an even greater chance of
leaving Brookline High without a diploma
-
At BHS is 2013-14, 10% of all students were
Hispanic but only 3% of all teacher were Hispanic. The staff clearly doesn’t
mirror the student body
MCAS: 2013 ELA,
percentage of advanced scoring: Whites about 70%, Blacks about 25%,
Hispanic/Latino just under 50%
2013 Math: % of proficient or advanced scores: Whites about
90%, Blacks about 55%, and Hispanic Latino about 85%.
These were some eye opening statistics, and was the first
time I was able to see a statistical reflection of the discrepancies among students
of different demographics at BHS. Along with the numbers came the reasoning and
faults of the school system.
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