Margaret Fortune

Can These Powerful Black Leaders Join Forces to Close the Achievement Gap for Black Children?

When California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced the English language arts and math results of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) test last month, we found out that African American students’ scores lagged behind the much higher marks their White, Asian and Hispanic peers obtained.

Heated Charter School Debates Ignore One Key Fact: Black Students Are Underperforming In Our Schools

African American children are California’s lowest performing group of students, only above students with special needs. Only two percent of Black kids in the state attend schools that are considered “high performing.” And only 10 majority African American schools, located mostly in hard-to-count, high-poverty census tracts around the Bay Area and Los Angeles, score, on average, above the state math and language arts requirements.