Race Gap Narrows in Schools

Almost a year after the president of the Cambridge chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) compared the Cambridge Public Schools’ achievement benchmarks to an “apartheid educational system,” the benchmarks system has been revised and achievement gaps between minority and white students have narrowed, according to a district report released at a school committee meeting last night.

The state now uses the Composite Performance Index (CPI), which measures, on a 100-point scale, how close the district has come to attaining proficiency for all students.

When the president of the NAACP Cambridge chapter, Kathy A. Reddick, raised her concerns at a February school committee meeting, the school system compared minority groups’ performance to that of whites.

Using the new CPI benchmarking system, the 2005-2006 report released last night shows that the minority-white achievement gaps are narrowing. The report recalculates the achievement gaps for previous years using the CPI method to make its estimations.

Some of the district’s most significant gains for minority students were on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) English language arts and mathematics exams, where African American students gained 16.4 points in English and 19.1 points in math, bringing their totals to 83.0 in English and 78.3 points in math. Similarly, Hispanic students gained 22.3 points in English and 28.6 points in math, bringing their totals to 82.2 points in English and 77.2 points in math, respectively.

Despite the improvements, minority students still fell behind white students on MCAS test results.

Although Reddick last night thanked the district for changing what she called the “racist” aspect of the achievement benchmarks, she called on the district to present more specific data, such as percentages of minority students who reach “proficiency.”

She also called for a “community meeting” dedicated solely to discussing the results.

School committee member Nancy Walser said that the district would discuss the report at this year’s three newly planned community-wide forums on the achievement gap.

Despite cited weaknesses in measurement, Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves ’72 said the district has progressed in its reporting of student performance in schools.

“There was a time when the school committee got no data like this,” he said.

—Staff writer Laura A. Moore can be reached at lamoore@fas.harvard.edu