One of the third rails of education policy is the inclusion of race in evaluating academic achievement. Politicians and the media will look the other way or ignore the inconvenient truth that a school's racial composition is an important parameter in the academic outcomes of the students of that school. Better to blame teachers and their tenure than to actually investigate the data to determine the cause of poor student academic outcomes. Therefore, I took the DOE's "High School Quality Snapshot" for the 2013-14 school year of all the Queens High Schools and compared their racial composition with their "college readiness" percentages and found that race does matter. I used the "college readiness" percentage since its more difficult for schools but not impossible to manipulate as the other parameters are. For some reason the way the City calculates "college readiness" is different from the State and is higher than what the State calculates as college ready.
To simplify the comparisons I placed schools in five categories. These categories are Majority of Asians and Whites, Diverse (no majority by any races), Majority Hispanics, Majority Black and schools that were 80% or more Black. Admittedly, one can find fault in how I selected the categories but this seemed the most appropriate way to determine if the racial composition of the schools correlated with the "college readiness" percentages listed for each high school school in the DOE snapshot.
The results were very disturbing as the data showed that the schools who had the highest "college readiness" percentages had a majority of Asian and White students while the lowest percentage of "college ready" students were in schools that had a black population of 80% or greater. The table below and the graph above summarizes my findings.
Majority College Readiness
Asian/White.............................................73%
Diverse...................................................38%
Hispanic..................................................29%
Black......................................................18%
>80% Black.............................................12%
Not surprisingly, the screened and specialized schools showed the highest "college readiness" percentages and they usually have a majority of Asian and White students. However, even if you eliminated those schools from the data, the majority Asian and White schools still had a "college readiness" percentage of 55%, significantly higher than the diverse category, where no majority exists and includes some screened and audition schools as well. The lowest college ready scores listed by the DOE snapshot are all found in primarily black schools. Listed below are the schools with the lowest "college readiness" percentages.
School College Readiness
Business Computer Applications....................4%
Humanities and Arts...................................5%
Rockaway Park..........................................6%
August Martin...........................................6%
Fredrick Douglas Academy VI.......................7%
QIRT........................................................8%
Law Government and Community Service........9%
Blaming teachers, administrators, and schools for the poor academic outcomes is not only wrong but misguided. The DOE snapshot clearly shows that schools with high percentages of Black students are associated with low "college readiness" percentages which strongly indicates that its the social-economic factors that affect student academic outcomes, like poverty, community, and family. When one looks at the DOE "High School Quality Snapshot" the racial composition of the school strongly correlates with the "college readiness" and academic outcomes of the school's student population. In this case race matters.
18 comments:
Excellent analysis chaz. I always suspected that's the case but you are the first person who actually took the data and showed it.
Blame the Negroes!!!!!!!! LOL. Now which one of you lowly ATRs want a permanent position teaching those misguided, poorly behaved, academically inept black youth where the admins are probably straight assholes...lol
Everyone has known this for years and had no desire to quantify the statistics. Again this is not about education, its about keeping the masses uneducated and placated with free housing and entitlement programs. Legitimacy and marriage are penalized by these programs.
This piece and one or two of the comments border on a place we might not want to travel. The college ready rate with the 75% ELA Regents and 80% Math Regents scores is a goal that schools did not shoot for until recently. Schools with mostly Level 1 students are going to have a difficult time achieving this goal and comparing these numbers is not exactly scientific.
The reality is most families with savvy parents send their kids away from these neighborhoods for schooling so results are clearly skewed.
If you are trying to say segregated schools are unequal, then say that. Resources matter. How many kids in these schools have learning disabilities? Research is confirming that kids from poverty households start out with a vocabulary deficit before kindrarten.
As for the overall college readiness rate, I just went to the state website. For 2012 overall NYC had a 21.9% rate overall college readiness rate and the white rate was 39%. Is there a crisis? That is 61% of your beloved white students in NYC not college ready. The college and career readiness number is picked out as a way to hammer teachers. Every student is not going to be college ready. By buying into the state's misuse of numbers, we are going down a road we don't want to travel down where bad teachers will be seen as the problem.
Anon 7:47 am
The facts are the facts. Yes, the City's college readiness rate is higher than how the State calculates it but to ignore the issue that high poverty black neighborhoods are associated with low academic achievement is an issue that people want to avoid.
I get your message that just bringing it up is racism to you and that is the problem since it stops any progress to solve the issue for fear of being labeled a racist.
Keep your head buried in the sand and ignore the inconvenient truth that race does matter when it comes to academic achievement.
What has me concerned is what Cuomo plans to do about changes in the APPR law.....if he gets his way and increases the weight of the state measure...all bets are truly off.....try getting kids to pass a state exam and they come from some jacked up household where education is not a priority......lol....the teacher is so screwed....that will be a reality....you better believe it.
that's the problem. When somebody addressed the race issue, they're labeled as a racist and the situation remains.
Keep up the good work Chaz and don't let them dictate what you should post.
Links between race and poverty are consistent across the country. Teachers who teach in high poverty schools are more likely to be rated ineffective and to be brought up on tenure charges. Their schools are frequently deemed to be failing, in need of turnaround strategies and ultimately closure. This scenario is common knowledge. Why label Chaz a racist for pointing out the obvious?
To 7:47,
Do you think it's by accident that NYC has the most segregated school system in the country? This is especially troubling when one considers the fact that one of the richest men in the world had complete control of the school system for 12 years. The rich don't want black children to get an education; and that's a fact.
very easy to call someone a racist. hope my grammar is correct. tool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey anon 3:11 you just put the wammy on yourself with your statement regarding atr educators. Your post indicates that your are either an outsider or a non educator or you are a complete moron and typical bozo
What Asian kids do better naturally? And to think Principal Ben Sherman at the East West International HS in Flushing takes all the credit for his student's spectacular regents grades and graduation rates (over 90% asian students).
The chancellor tisch is taking a "tough' stand saying if the schools on the list by dibasio and farina do not make improvements by THIS SPRING then she will close them down. Wow, this clueless dame is as clueless as her billionaire ny giants owner tisch who just destroyed the ny giants (3-10) and lost again yesterday to the worst team in the NFL. Ms. Tisch, closing schools DO NOT WORK. Also, SMALLER SCHOOLS DO NOT WORK. Do I need to spell this out on the white board dunce?? Are you the same Ms. Tisch who gave the charter school to a 22 year old who claimed he had a PhD??? OMG you cannot make this shit up. Tisch needs to step down and move to Arizona to retire with the snakes in the grass as she will fit right in
You missed a main point that this will be used to hammer teachers. I also disagree that race matters. It is poverty and a higher percentage of African Americans live below the poverty line. Are you implying that blacks are genetically inferior when you say race matters in academic achievement? Please clear this up.
Lack of money and white supremacy is why these groups are failing. And Chaz I doubt if you are a racist, but only you know, hopefully.
Try listening to Amos Wilson on Youtube.
Let's make this perfectly clear. Blacks are NOT genetically inferior. However, the dysfunctional community and family as well as poverty is the reason education is not valued.
When these children grow up without a father and are not taught respect for authority and are behaviorally challenged, is it any wonder they do poorly when it comes to academics.
Its not the white man putting down the minorities, its the failure of the adults in the community to be proper role models for their children.
Chaz:
Don't bother defending yourself. The data makes it clear that the majority Black schools have academic issues. We all know it's about how these children are brought up and until something is done, it will continue.
Blaming the school staff and accusing you of racism is just wrong. These people should be trying to fix the system than accusing people of being a racist when you brought out the data.
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