Independent Budget Office: Black and Hispanic Students, Poor Kids, English-language Learners and Children With Disabilities Denied Academic Resources

NY Daily News: 

EXCLUSIVE: Minority students in middle schools being shut out of important academic resources

BY BEN CHAPMAN  

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, March 27, 2016, 4:00 AM

LINK 

Black and Hispanic students, poor kids, English-language learners and children with disabilities have missed out on a wide range of academic resources in city middle schools, a new report shows.

An Independent Budget Office report — based on an analysis of city Education Department data — shows Big Apple junior high schools failed to provide those students with art and music teachers, advanced courses and Regents exams that advocates say would help them succeed in high school and beyond.

The statistics reveal an unfair divide where wealthier students and white and Asian kids have access to greater educational resources, said Alliance for Quality Education Advocacy Director Zakiyah Ansari.

“What this is really about is opportunity and allowing black and Latino children to succeed," Ansari said. "We need to provide these students with the opportunities they need to flourish."

The IBO study, obtained exclusively by The News, compares student demographics and academic outcomes for the academic year of 2012-2013, the most recent year for which the data was available when the study was begun.

That year, just 18% of city middle school students who qualified for free or reduced price lunches took advanced courses such as Honors Social Studies or Honors English Language Arts, compared to 33% of students who did not quality for lunch discounts.

Likewise, just 14% of black and Hispanic kids took those advanced courses in city middle schools, compared to 24% of kids of other ethnicities. Only 9% of English language learners and 8% of students with disabilities took the advanced classes.

Similarly low percentages of kids from those traditionally underserved demographic groups took advanced Regents exams in subjects such as algebra or American history in city middle schools that year. New York students must eventually pass Regents exams to graduate high school.

The report also showed that schools with higher percentages of black and Hispanic students, or kids who qualified for free or reduced price lunches, were less likely to have at least one full-time art or music teacher.

City Education Department spokesman Will Mantell said a number of efforts underway seek to address the issue, including a plan to offer algebra classes to all eighth-grade students and another program that has added full-time arts teachers to 94 middle schools since 2014.

“We will continue to invest in equity and excellence across all our middle schools,” Mantell said.

Black and Hispanic students, poor kids, English-language learners and children with disabilities have missed out on a wide range of academic resources in city middle schools, a new report shows.

An Independent Budget Office report — based on an analysis of city Education Department data — shows Big Apple junior high schools failed to provide those students with art and music teachers, advanced courses and Regents exams that advocates say would help them succeed in high school and beyond.

The statistics reveal an unfair divide where wealthier students and white and Asian kids have access to greater educational resources, said Alliance for Quality Education Advocacy Director Zakiyah Ansari.

“What this is really about is opportunity and allowing black and Latino children to succeed," Ansari said. "We need to provide these students with the opportunities they need to flourish."

The IBO study, obtained exclusively by The News, compares student demographics and academic outcomes for the academic year of 2012-2013, the most recent year for which the data was available when the study was begun.

That year, just 18% of city middle school students who qualified for free or reduced price lunches took advanced courses such as Honors Social Studies or Honors English Language Arts, compared to 33% of students who did not quality for lunch discounts.

Likewise, just 14% of black and Hispanic kids took those advanced courses in city middle schools, compared to 24% of kids of other ethnicities. Only 9% of English language learners and 8% of students with disabilities took the advanced classes.

Similarly low percentages of kids from those traditionally underserved demographic groups took advanced Regents exams in subjects such as algebra or American history in city middle schools that year. New York students must eventually pass Regents exams to graduate high school.

The report also showed that schools with higher percentages of black and Hispanic students, or kids who qualified for free or reduced price lunches, were less likely to have at least one full-time art or music teacher.

City Education Department spokesman Will Mantell said a number of efforts underway seek to address the issue, including a plan to offer algebra classes to all eighth-grade students and another program that has added full-time arts teachers to 94 middle schools since 2014.

“We will continue to invest in equity and excellence across all our middle schools,” Mantell said.

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