Officials Use Race to Set Academic Achievement Goals for School Children

Today we released our new study: “Officials Use Race to Help Set Academic Achievement Goals,” available here. Last fall, the state Superintendent of Public Instruction and education officials at the state’s 295 school districts used student race as a factor in setting state, district and school-level academic achievement goals for tests in math and reading for 2012 through 2017.

For most people this is a surprising finding, given our state’s long struggle against institutional racism and the passage of important civil rights legislation, like voter-approved Initiative 200. Many parents are uncomfortable with school districts identifying their children by race, especially when officials often guess at a student's race when it isn't reported by the family.

Most parents would like school officials to treat their children as unique persons, and develop educational programs to meet the diverse needs of students. Creating learning expectations based on race affects the way education officials view children — through the lens of race rather than as individuals. Used in official guidelines, the racial group approach threatens to undermine good teaching and ultimately the learning success of all students. 

A summary of the findings from the study are below.

Statewide Academic Achievement Targets:
Student Racial Subgroup       Academic Subject   2017 Target Passing Rate
American Indian                          math                         68.7 %
American Indian                         reading                       74.5 %
Asian                                         math                          88.2 %
Asian                                         reading                       89.5 %
Black                                         math                          69.1 %
Black                                         reading                       77.1 %
Hispanic                                    math                          70.9 %
Hispanic                                    reading                       76.4 %
Pacific Islander                          math                          71.6 %
Pacific Islander                          reading                       76.9 %
White                                       math                          83.1 %
White                                       reading                       87.6 %

Official Four-year Graduation Targets for Each Student Racial Subgroup:
Student Racial Subgroup             2017 Graduation Target by Group
Asian                                                           91.3 %
White                                                          89.4 %
Black                                                           82.2 %
Hispanic                                                      80.7 %
Pacific Islander                                            79.8 %
American Indian                                         77.7 %