New data shows racial achievement gaps at more than half of Allegheny County school districts

Janae Williams, a student in the eleventh grade at Northgate Middle/Senior High School, watches "Hamlet" in her advanced placement literature class. (Photo by Kat Procyk/PublicSource)
Janae Williams, an 11th-grader at Northgate Middle/Senior High School, watches “Hamlet” in her Advanced Placement literature class. (Photo by Kat Procyk/PublicSource)

Caroline Johns saw three important problems to solve after becoming superintendent of the Northgate School District in July 2016. She needed to increase the number of graduates going to higher education, improve third-grade reading scores and examine the five tracks of math that students were funneled into in middle school.
But not until a year later did she become aware of an underlying academic achievement issue she hadn’t recognized. Academic achievement of Black students trailed that of White students in grades 7-12.
Black students at the middle school were stuck in the lowest-achieving math tracks, and Black students were not enrolled in upper level or Advanced Placement courses in high school, according to data presented by the district’s newly hired curriculum director.
“It revealed institutional racism that we hadn’t even thought of,” Johns said. “It’s a very difficult issue, and, on the surface, it looks like there’s no problem there.”
Of the 42 Allegheny County school districts outside the City of Pittsburgh, 23 had one or more schools with achievement gaps between Black and White students in the 2017-18 school year.
The state doesn’t provide public data on the remaining 19 districts because they do not have at least 20 Black students at their schools.
Five districts — Northgate, McKeesport Area, Penn Hills, Gateway and East Allegheny — had double-digit racial achievement gaps in every school, according to data from the state’s Future Ready PA Index.
https://www.publicsource.org/how-new-state-data-has-revealed-institutional-racism-in-pittsburgh-area-school-districts/

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