Monday, June 13, 2016

THE ROAD TO COLLEGE FOR BLACK GIRLS

Feeling Rebloggy


In black neighborhoods schools lack “the fundamental tools to get into college … we’re failing (black students) as educators, as support staff, as communities,” she explains, bolstered by a study examining gaps in college preparation.

On key measures, such as the percentage of high schools with no counselor and student-to-counselor ratio, black students fare worse than peers in affluent, predominately white schools.

Another piece of the puzzle is access to college-level courses. Black girls are more likely to attend segregated, high-poverty high schools where “a quarter…do not offer Algebra II;  a third…do not offer chemistry,” putting the full range of college prep classes out of reach.


~hechinger report

Part of this shocked me. I thought I was un-shockable when it comes to the treatment of underprivileged black schools.

Whenever I thought of poor, inner-city schools. I thought of decrepit buildings, books 20 years old and falling apart, lack of computers or old software. I could have guessed there would be fewer guidance counselors but zero? And it never even occurred to me that you could call a high school a "high school" and not offer match classes after Algerbra and just skip Chemistry classes altogether. 

If a child goes to school where there's no guidance counselor, no Algerbra II, and no Chemistry, they virtually have no chance to go to a school with a reputation like Harvard, Princeton, etc.  If you can get your foot in the door of a college with a good rep you can go on to be the leader of the free world between the years of  2000 and 2008 even if you don't get a grade above C- once you're in that college


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