Black, Hispanic students behind
Using civil rights data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, ProPublica built a database to examine racial disparities at 96,000 public and charter schools in 17,000 districts across the U.S. See projects.propublica.org.
The numbers showed that “black and Hispanic students are, on average, less likely to be selected for gifted programs and take Advanced Placement courses than their white peers,” ProPublica reported. “They are also more likely, on average, to be suspended and expelled.”
The data included the Beacon City School District (where 54 percent of its 2,984 students are non-white) but not Haldane (13 percent) or Garrison (22 percent). The data showed that, while segregation of white and black students at Beacon is low:
- Black students are, on average, academically 1.3 grades behind white students.
- Hispanic students are, on average, academically 1.2 grades behind white students.
- White students are 1.9 times as likely to be enrolled in at least one AP class as Hispanic students.
- Black students are 3.6 times as likely to be suspended as white students.
- Hispanic students are 2.1 times as likely to be suspended as white students.
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If Beacon High School wasn’t so biased on minorities and showed them equal opportunities as they do for white people maybe GPAs would be higher and and there would be less conflict. But instead they profile us as if we’re bad children and treat us like we don’t know how to act.
For years, minorities have been overlooked and seen as threats. Obviously if they had equal opportunities as the white kids, their GPAs would be at the same level, if not higher. How are we supposed to function properly in an environment that was built to tear us down every time we try to build ourselves up?