Lingering Academic Gap Riles NAACP

Black and Hispanic Students Demand Attention, NAACP Says

By Michael Alison Chandler (Contact)

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

In one of the wealthiest counties in the country, minority advocates are urging the Loudoun County School Board to redouble efforts and resources to boost achievement of black and Hispanic students to the level of their white classmates.

Members of the Loudoun chapter of the NAACP, who have monitored minority student performance for more than a decade, said they have seen only “small, inconsistent improvement” in narrowing racial and ethnic disparities.

“Given that some schools throughout the nation have eliminated the achievement gap, [we] must demand more effective and vigorous action,” Reginald A. Early, the chapter’s president, wrote the board recently.

State tests show large gaps in reading scores, particularly for elementary- and middle-school students. Four years ago, the passing rate for non-Hispanic white third-graders in Loudoun was 24 percentage points ahead of the rate for both black and Hispanic students. In the past school year, black students lagged by 21 points; for Hispanic students, the disparity was 29 points.

Stubborn disparities challenge educators everywhere, including those in the affluent Washington suburbs, where overall high performance can overshadow lower achievement among some groups. The typical explanations that experts cite — including language barriers, poverty or uninvolved parents — often do not fully explain those gaps.

Three years ago, a group of highly educated, professional African American parents in Ashburn realized that their middle-school-age sons could slip into under-achieving as they encountered low academic expectations in or out of school. The parents at Eagle Ridge Middle School, and now at Stone Hill Middle School, set up a homework club in response. They organize field trips to colleges and meet regularly to monitor their sons’ performance.

Gabrielle Carpenter, the group’s founder and a guidance counselor at Stone Hill, said she thinks the effort is helping the students keep their grades up and keep their sights on challenging classes and, ultimately, college.

The NAACP recommended specific strategies for helping minority students across the school system. Its suggestions include using test scores to rate teachers, dedicating more funds to outreach programs for minority parents and recruiting a more racially diverse workforce of educators. Although more than a third of Loudoun students are nonwhite, only 7 percent of teachers are minorities.

The NAACP also recommended better training for teachers in cultural competence and classroom management, with the goal of alleviating inequities in school discipline. Black and Hispanic students represented about one-fifth of the student body in 2005-06, but they made up about two-fifths of those suspended that school year.

In September, officials responded to the NAACP in a board presentation that portrayed the school system as making strides in minority achievement. They highlighted several new programs that have shown promising results for minority students and showed evidence that achievement is improving across all groups.

For example, the percentage of all black students in Loudoun who have passed state English tests has increased from 66 percent to 80 percent over four years. The passing rate for all Hispanic students went from 64 percent to 74 percent in that time. White students’ scores also have increased, from 88 percent to 94 percent.

“All ships are rising . . . but we don’t have true equity,” said Sharon D. Ackerman, assistant superintendent for instruction.

She said schools have increased participation in Advanced Placement classes, which can help standardized test scores and college readiness. The rate of enrollment for black students in the AP program increased from 17 percent to 32 percent over the past four years, and the rate for Hispanic students rose from 16 percent to 24 percent. White students’ participation rose from 37 percent to 56 percent.

Board members were both heartened by test score gains and confounded by persistent gaps.

“I could throw a party on the change in the numbers, but they are not closing the gap,” said School Board member John Stevens (Potomac). With all of Loudoun’s advantages in resources, though, he said he was concerned to see the school system facing “the same achievement gap as everyone else in Virginia.”

Early said the NAACP will continue monitoring the Loudoun system until that changes.

“They need us to put more fire under their feet and keep it there,” he said.

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