School Grades Reflect a Persistent Disparity - NYTimes.com: Over the last three years, high schools that received the lowest marks from the city have been the ones with the highest percentages of poor, black and Hispanic students, despite an evaluation system that was meant to equalize differences among student bodies, according to an analysis by The New York Times of school grades released this week.
Blacks and Hispanics make up on average 77 percent of the student population in the 139 schools that received A’s this past year, compared with more than 90 percent of the schools that received C’s or worse. While the vast majority of A schools have a high minority enrollment, 14 of the 15 largest high-performing schools in the city have drastically lower black and Hispanic enrollment.
As a result, black and Hispanic students over all are more likely to attend a school that scored lower under the city’s grading system: 34 percent of black and Hispanic students attend a high school that received a C or worse, compared with 15 percent of whites and Asians.
The analysis found a similar grade distribution in 2007 and 2008.
