New York Times
March 28, 2002

Analysis Finds Race Disparity in School Tests

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

New York State has broken down elementary and middle school standardized test scores by race and ethnicity for the first time and found that white and Asian students do much better than black and Hispanic students in English and mathematics.

The findings also show that black and Hispanic students continue to lag as they go through school and that in many cases the  gap worsens.

The achievement gap by race and ethnicity, which mirrors similar findings nationwide, exists across the board, from affluent suburbs to large cities, but it is most striking in urban areas with high concentrations of poverty, like New York City.

The statistics, which were released yesterday, also show that within individual schools and districts, the higher test scores of  white students can pull up the average and mask the poor results of minority students, disguising the difference in achievement.

But in an indication that the gap is not immutable, there are individual schools that defy the pattern, where black, white and Hispanic students achieve at high levels. These schools tend to be in more middle-class neighborhoods, like Bellerose, Queens;  suburban Copiague, on Long Island; or Mount Vernon and New Rochelle in Westchester County.

At Public School 186 in Bellerose, 80 percent of black students and 83 percent of whites met state standards in fourth-grade math. At Great Neck Road Elementary School in Copiague, 90 percent of blacks and 97 percent of whites met state standards in fourth-grade math. At George M. Davis Elementary School in New Rochelle, 89 percent of blacks and 96 percent of whites met standards in fourth-grade math.

Statewide, there is a gap of 34 points between the percentage of black and Hispanic students meeting state standards in fourth-grade English and the percentage of white students meeting standards. In eighth-grade math, 52 percent of whites met  standards statewide, compared with 13 percent of blacks, a gap of 39 points.

In New York City, the gap in fourth-grade English is 33 percentage points, but the performance of all groups is worse.

Among the schools with the biggest gaps is P.S. 100, the Coney Island School, in Brooklyn, where the gap between black and white students is 59 points, with 31 percent of blacks, 90 percent of whites and 33 percent of Hispanics meeting standards in  fourth-grade math.

At Middle School 54 on the Upper West Side, the gap is 62 points, with 31 percent of blacks, 93 percent of whites and 15 percent of Hispanics meeting standards in eighth-grade English. The school has three programs in the building, one that admits gifted students and two that are less selective.

The decision by Richard P. Mills, the state education commissioner, to report test scores by race and ethnicity thrusts New York into the middle of a debate about who is to blame for the gap, and what to do about it. Already yesterday, some principals were suggesting that their schools should be forgiven for having a gap between white and minority students because the minority students were more likely to come from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds.

Mr. Mills said he believed that if attention was focused on the problem, schools would find ways to solve it. He said the low scores of black and Hispanic students could be attributed in part to less access to qualified teachers. "Neither poverty nor race is an excuse," Mr. Mills said. "All children can rise to the standards and there are many schools in the data that you have to prove
it."

State officials said they are reporting the data a year before it will be required nationwide by the federal "No Child Left Behind" education law. Reporting test scores by race in Texas and North Carolina has been credited with motivating schools to improve.

Some national studies have shown that race is a stronger predictor of how well a child will do in school than income, but some researchers say these studies may overlook subtle variations in parental education and lifestyle within income categories.

But the data also illustrate New York's status as what Gary Orfield, a professor of education and social policy at Harvard, has identified as the most segregated state for black students in the nation. Less than a quarter of schools in the state have enough of both black and white students to provide data, and many schools in New York City are nearly all black and Hispanic.

But some scholars said the achievement gap is the product of a complicated interplay of school, family and social influences that can be tricky to untangle. That is why, said Ronald Ferguson, an education researcher at Harvard's Kennedy School, successful  middle-class schools like P.S. 87 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan can still suffer from a race gap.

Dr. Ferguson said he was studying a network of successful suburban schools across the country, many in college towns, with upper-middle-class black and white students. But beneath that surface, he said, he has found that "the socioeconomic gaps are  much bigger than you expect them to be."

Many more black children live with one parent or neither parent, more white parents have college and advanced degrees, white parents have attended better colleges, and white families have more generations in the middle-class.

Dr. Ferguson said that although reporting test scores by race "stirs up trouble, the trouble it stirs up motivates people to get to work on the issue."

New York State's data show that the gap is fairly constant across elementary and middle grades in very poor systems, like New  York City's, where students score lower overall. But even though the gap is constant, performance drops as children move  through school. The gap also widens from fourth to eighth grade in affluent districts, state officials said.

Asians do better than whites everywhere except in New York City, where they do marginally worse than whites. Hispanics do better in the suburbs than they do in New York City and other urban areas, but they fall off between fourth and eighth grades.

Mr. Mills said one problem for black and Hispanic students was a lack of access to qualified teachers. The higher the concentration of black and Hispanic students in a school, he said, the more likely that teachers will not have majored in the  subjects they are teaching and will not have state certification. In the fall of 1999, a quarter of teachers lacked certification in  schools where more than 80 percent of the students were minorities; in schools where fewer than 20 percent were minority students, only 6 percent of teachers were uncertified.

At one New York City school that has closed the gap, P.S. 186 in Bellerose, the principal, John Holst, credited highly motivated  parents and experienced teachers with promoting achievement. P.S. 186 had 20 black students and 24 white students take the  fourth-grade math test last year, a rare level of integration, and 80 percent of the black students met standards, compared with 83
percent of whites.

Mr. Holst said he was a little surprised to be singled out for praise, because his school ranks below average in District 26 in Queens, the top-rated district in New York City.

Nor, Mr. Holst said, is it among the most affluent schools in the district. But black students compete to get into the school from  neighboring District 28. "Their parents are really cooperative," he said. "They fight to get in. They want to be here."

In contrast, Huntington Intermediate School in Huntington Station, on Long Island, has one of the biggest racial gaps in the state  in fourth-grade math, with 90 percent of white students meeting standards but only 41 percent of black students doing so. The principal did not respond to a telephone request for comment. But a dean at the school, who refused to be identified, said the
school had children from "million-dollar houses and homeless shelters."

Professor Orfield said segregated schools were more likely to have high concentrations of poverty, a situation that correlates with a higher turnover of students, less advanced courses and more children with serious health problems that affect attendance and learning. "What testing actually shows you is how deep the problems are," he said. "It doesn't solve the problems."

Professor Orfield said that although schools can solve part of the problem, other elements like better health care, housing and employment opportunities are important.

In fourth-grade English statewide, 73 percent of whites met state standards last year, compared with 39 percent of blacks, a gap  of 34 percentage points. Among Hispanics, 39 percent met the standards, a 34-point gap with whites. Among Asians, 69 percent met the standards, a gap of just 4 points.

In fourth-grade English for New York City, 70 percent of whites met state standards, compared with 37 percent of blacks, a 33-point gap. Among Hispanics, 35 percent met standards, a 35-point gap. Among Asians, 65 percent met standards, a gap of just 5 points.

Affluent districts, which the state calls "low needs" districts, had the smallest gap in fourth-grade English, with 89 percent of Asians meeting standards, 87 percent of whites, 73 percent of Hispanics and 69 percent of blacks.

In eighth-grade English statewide, 55 percent of whites met standards, compared with 24 percent of blacks, 26 percent of Hispanics and 59 percent of Asians. In eighth grade English for New York City, 57 percent of whites, 24 percent of blacks, 25 percent of Hispanics and 56 percent of Asians met standards.

In eighth-grade math, 52 percent of whites met standards statewide, compared with just 13 percent of blacks, a gap of 39 points. Statewide, 16 percent of Hispanics met standards in eighth-grade math, a gap of 36 points. Among Asians, 58 percent met eighth-grade math standards, 6 points more than whites.

In eighth-grade math for New York City, 45 percent of whites met the standards, 12 percent of blacks, 14 percent of Hispanics and 54 percent of Asians.