by Rob Taylor Jr.
Courier Staff Writer
In an urban school district like Pittsburgh Public Schools, of which its students are majority-Black, how can the label of a “gifted student” be mostly associated with a White student?
Perplexing, but true, according to A+ Schools’ yearly “Report to the Community” findings, released Nov. 16.
A+ Schools, a local non-profit advocacy organization, found that during the 2019-20 school year, 66 percent of PPS students identified as “gifted” were White; just 18 percent were Black students. The district has a student population that’s 51 percent Black, 32 percent White, and the remaining 17 percent identifying as multi-ethnic, Hispanic or Asian.
The Pa. State Code defines “mentally gifted” as “outstanding intellectual and creative ability, the development of which requires specially designed programs or support services, or both, not ordinarily provided in the regular education program,” the report read.
A+ Schools found that the students who were classified as “gifted” were mostly found in PPS schools that had the lowest percentages of students classified as “economically disadvantaged.”
A New Pittsburgh Courier analysis of the data provided by A+ Schools revealed that there were three PPS schools that had 25 percent or less of its students classified as “economically disadvantaged.” Those three schools had the highest percentage of “gifted” students (CAPA 6-12, 34 percent “gifted;” Colfax K-8, 20 percent “gifted;” Montessori PreK-5, 17 percent “gifted”).
But in more than 45 PPS schools of which the percentage of “economically disadvantaged” students was 45 percent and higher, less than 10 percent of the students were classified as “gifted.” There’s only one school in the district last year that had more than 45 percent of its students classified as “economically disadvantaged” but had higher than 10 percent of its students classified as “gifted.” The school, the Courier has learned exclusively, was Obama 6-12, 51 percent “economically disadvantaged,” 14 percent “gifted.”
“Gifted identification in the lower grades provides automatic access to more rigorous courses in high school,” A+ Schools’ report read, “which has been shown to be a powerful predictor of college enrollment, persistence, and success.”
As students progress to high school, more Black students in the district tend to take AP, or Advanced Placement, courses. However, of the students who took at least one AP course in the 2019-20 school year, 56 percent were White, 27 percent were Black. Possibly more staggering, while 23 percent of White students passed an AP course and scored a “3” or higher on an AP exam last year, just 1 percent of Black students did.
James Fogarty, executive director of A+ Schools, told the Courier in an exclusive interview, Nov. 20, that there are three “big issues” with the “gifted” evaluation and identification. “One study showed that when teachers thought a child was ‘gifted,’ that child was given more challenging work and was pushed to grow. This also has an impact on a child’s view of self as those seen as ‘smart’ get on a bus once a week to go to the ‘gifted’ center. It’s a terrible message to be sending if you’re trying to build a growth mindset in children,” Fogarty said.
The other issues with the “gifted” classification is that those children generally have an easier path to get into an AP course, and those without the classification “have to be recommended by a teacher and apply to those more rigorous courses,” he said. And Fogarty added that the evaluation instruments used to identify “gifted” students measure “specific aspects of intelligence that have a lot to do with background knowledge and the resources available to a student. It creates two tiers; one where mostly White students with greater resources are given access to additional academic supports and projects, and those without aren’t.”
A+ Schools didn’t stop there with its dissection of Pittsburgh Public Schools and the disparities that exist between its Black and White students.
Suspensions have reduced drastically across the district over the past four years, but of the 2,331 students suspended at least once last year, 79 percent were Black, 12 percent were White. A+ Schools feels that the 2,331 students suspended is still too much, emphasizing in its report that the 2,331 students who were suspended “could have almost filled Heinz Hall.”
Because of the high percentage of Black students being suspended at least once compared to White students, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the PPS schools with the highest percentage of students being suspended also had a high percentage of Black students enrolled at the school. A Courier data analysis found that Milliones 6-12 school, in the Hill District, with 88 percent of the students identified as Black, led all schools with 37 percent of its total students suspended. At Westinghouse 6-12, in Homewood, where 95 percent of the students identified as Black, 32 percent of the total students were suspended.
But the Courier also found that even in many PPS schools that had a higher percentage of White students than Black students last year, Black students still received the majority of the suspensions.
At Mifflin PreK-8, in the Lincoln Place neighborhood, 52 percent of the students are White, 37 percent are Black. But last year, 70 percent of the suspensions there went to Black students. White students received 20 percent. At South Brook 6-8, in Brookline, 56 percent of the students are White, 25 percent are Black. But Black students received more suspensions than White students last year, 50 to 40 percent. CAPA fell under the same umbrella. The Creative and Performing Arts school, Downtown, had 64 percent of its students identify as White last year; Black students totaled 23 percent. Though only four percent of CAPA’s 879 students were suspended in 2019-20, more Black students were suspended than White students. Sci-Tech 6-12, in Oakland, and Allderdice High School, in Squirrel Hill, were more examples of schools with higher percentages of White students than Black students, but with more Black students being suspended last year. At Carrick High School, there was an even split in White and Black student enrollment, at 42 percent each. But when it came to suspensions last year, Blacks were suspended nearly five times as much there as White students.
Fogarty told the Courier exclusively that to lessen the amount of Black student suspensions, the district should invest in “Parent Family Home Visits.”
“It builds a culture where simple judgments are undermined and more nuanced understanding of our communities and caregivers can be built,” he said. “Our educators need tools to do this well, and we would do well to invest the time and resources in building their capacity to create strong partnerships and communication with our families.”
The A+ Schools annual report also touched on topics such as chronic absenteeism, teacher demographics and school trends of state tests and exams. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Pennsylvania did not administer the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test this past spring.
But A+ Schools made it clear in its report that chronic absenteeism with Black students in the district is alarming. During the 2019-20 school year (prior to March 13, when the pandemic forced school locations to close), Black Kindergarteners were chronically absent three times as much as White Kindergarteners. Chronic absenteeism is classified as missing 10 percent or more of the total number of school days in a school year.
“Chronic absence in Kindergarten impedes a child’s ability to master reading by the end of third grade. Moreover, absenteeism is highly predictive of whether a student will graduate or not,” A+ Schools’ report read.
And when it came to teacher demographics, the report read bluntly, citing a study: “Black students who’d had just one Black teacher by third grade were 13 percent more likely to enroll in college—and those who’d had two were 32 percent more likely to enroll.”
But in Pittsburgh Public Schools, there’s a very good chance a Black student may not have a Black teacher by third grade. A+ Schools’ data showed that in 2019-20, 85 percent of the district’s teachers were White; 13 percent were Black.
In its report, A+ Schools highlighted some “bright spots” that were taking place in the district to help combat the disparities between Black and White students. The district’s “Para 2 Teacher” program is aimed at helping paraprofessionals in the district, many of whom are African American, earn the necessary educational hardware to become a certified teacher. At Dilworth PreK-5, in Highland Park, some of the services provided to the school’s “gifted” students are made available to all students. And at Colfax K-8, in Squirrel Hill, led by principal Tamara Sanders-Woods, there’s been a steady improvement in third grade reading scores for Black students. What was a 35 percent reading on grade level in 2015 blossomed to a 63 percent reading on grade level in 2019.
TAMARA SANDERS-WOODS, principal of Pittsburgh Colfax K-8, was featured in A+ Schools’ annual “Report to the Community” for leading the improvement of Black students’ reading at grade level at the school.
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