By Taylor Johnson | OBSERVER Staff Writer
In California, about 89 schools serve a majority of Black students; however, many see deficits in English language arts and math test scores compared to other demographics.
Although Black students are lagging in most schools, a Fortune School of Education report found 13 schools with a majority Black population achieving at least the minimum standard on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.
Dominic Zareck, the director of data, analytics, and strategy at Fortune Schools, says the report is designed to encourage schools to adopt the best practices that will benefit all students and get districts to address systemic issues occurring with Black students.
Fortune Schools created this ranking of school districts after producing the 2012 book “Bridging the Achievement Gap” to identify and study top-performing majority Black schools.
“These are schools that are doing well with the lowest performing racial group in California, and they don’t often get a lot of credit or attention, even though they’re doing really, really important work,” Zareck says.
Among the 13 schools, eight were charter schools, three were magnet schools, and two were traditional schools. Most were in Southern California, while two Sacramento schools made the list – Rex and Margaret Fortune Early College High School, which earned third place, and Sacramento Charter High, which ranked 11th.
Fortune High had 66.7% of students meet the state’s standards for English language arts compared to the state’s average of 47%. The school did lag behind in its math scores with 16.3% meeting standards compared to the state average of 35.5%.
The school also had 79.1% of students meet college readiness, and 94% of students were going to college in 2024.
Sacramento Charter High had 47.6% of students meet the state’s standard for English language arts. Similarly, the school’s math score lagged with 8.3% compared to the state average of 35.5%.
Sacramento Charter High had 46.3% of students meet college readiness, and 79% of students went to college in 2024.
“We tried to make it a very straightforward, transparent process. It’s really just two criteria that we use,” Zareck says. “One is that at least a majority of the students they serve need to be African American, and then the second criterion is if they had an above the state average level of achievement for either ELA or math.”
In addition, for high schools, they also look at the percentage of college and career readiness and college-going rates from the state’s Department of Education.
The report also cited 11 reasons to help bridge the gap between test scores and Black students. These included having staff with a vision and plan for the students, working with parents and community leaders to assist students at home.
They also found that smaller enrollment, more professional development, parental learning opportunities, and adapting to students’ needs can also help bring up scores.