The Achievement Gap That Isn’t Racial

Disparities Found Among Black Students


New data from Seattle Public Schools show that the district’s black students whose first language is English fare significantly worse academically than black students from immigrant or refugee households.

Black students who speak Amharic (Ethiopia’s official language) at home posted the most impressive scores: Of those not enrolled in Seattle’s English Learners Program, 62% passed a state math test, while 74% passed the reading test. By contrast, African-Americans passed at rates of 36% for math and 56% for reading.

Even students whose families hail from war-torn Somalia appear to outshine their African-American peers in Seattle’s district schools. Students who speak Somali at home passed the state math exam at a 47% clip, while 67% passed the reading test.

Ahmed Jama, Executive Director of the Somali Community Services Coalition, said that while pleased with the news, he was in no mood to gloat. “There’s still plenty of room for improvement,” he said in a phone interview with ChoiceMedia.TV.

Jama stressed that refugees from Somalia must overcome severe disadvantages. Most Somali children, he said, received no schooling in their homeland and are now being raised by single mothers who themselves have never attended school.

When asked to explain the outperformance of Somali students, Jama credited the parents. “They feel they are now living in the land of opportunity,” Jama told ChoiceMedia.TV. “And they want their kids to learn and work hard.”

RiShawn Biddle, Editor of Dropout Nation, agreed with Jama. “These kids are doing well despite what their schools are doing,” Biddle said. “If you have parents who are dedicated, their kids will do fine. They will overcome the deficits of a school.”

Biddle added that most urban students desperately need educational options, whether through charters, vouchers or some other mechanism. “The current system doesn’t work,” he told ChoiceMedia.TV. “And it doesn’t work for a whole lot of kids.”

Even many Somali students wind up “lost in the system,” Jama told ChoiceMedia.TV. He specifically faults the schools’ practice of assigning new students to grade levels based on their age. “Seventeen year-olds, who’ve never been to school in their lives, are placed in 11th grade,” he said. “They are overwhelmed and they drop out.”



Source: http://choicemedia.tv/