Yesterday’s gratitude post let you guys in on the gem that is Rachel Cargle. Anybody already checked out a link or her instagram? Anyone else doing a bit of work?

I have. I’ve been researching the public school system in our area and holy hell, graphs are worth a thousand words. Buckle up.

This post will focus on the statistics for Black and White students in our district.

Some highlights:

  • There are 23,144 students preschool-12th grade in the district.
  • 22.1% are Black.
  • 46.4% are White.

Now come the pretty pie charts. First, let’s look at who gains access to gifted and talented resources.

Some highlights from the Gifted & Talented Enrollment statistics:

  • There are 2,761 students districtwide identified as gifted.
  • Whites make up 46.4% of the district but 70.4% of students identified as gifted.
  • Blacks make up 22.1% of the district but only 8.9% of students identified as gifted.

Let’s break those numbers down further¹:

  • 2,761 gifted students
  • 1,944 are White
  • 246 are Black

And a little further still:

  • 18 out of 100 White students are identified as gifted.
  • Less than 5 out of 100 Black students are identified as gifted.

Look at those stats. Are we really willing to believe whites make up less than half the student population but almost three fourths of the gifted population?

Is your head spinning yet? Hold on, here comes the doozy.

Let’s break it down by category.

In-School Suspension (1,267 students):

  • Whites make up 41.4% of students assigned ISS.
    • At 525 students that’s 5 out of 100 White students suspended.
  • Blacks make up 36.2% of students assigned ISS.
    • At 459 students that’s 9 out of 100 Black students suspended. Black students were almost twice as likely to receive ISS.

Out-of-School Suspension (1,672 students):

  • Whites make up 33.6% of students assigned OSS.
    • That’s 562 White students in OSS. That’s 5 out of every 100 White students suspended.
  • Blacks make up 40.8% of students assigned OSS.
    • That’s 682 Black students in OSS or 13 out of 100 Black students suspended. Black students were 260% more likely to receive OSS.

Explusions:

  • 100% Black.
    • 100.effing.percent

Still with me? That’s a lot of data to digest. Tomorrow we’re gonna talk about what we can learn from the numbers.

You can find the Department of Education’s link in “Here’s How to Find Out How Racist Your Kid’s School Is.”

You should check out your district, too.

¹ Traditional rounding rules were used for all decimals in this post.