50 Years Later, It’s Still Tough Being Young, Gifted and Black
The discussion about structural racism in our schools often centers around Black student achievement and school discipline. Whether we call it the “achievement gap” or the “opportunity gap”, we often focus on Black students who are not doing well in our education system.
According to a USA today report citing data from the Department of Education:
From gifted-and-talented programs to teacher experience to advanced science and math courses, the data show, the schools that enroll large numbers of minority students are unequal in nearly every way.
To be young, gifted and Black…
But what about the Black students who are already overcoming the odds? How are they doing?
As the Black students from elite schools across the country testify, it’s STILL hard to be young, gifted and Black in our nation’s schools.
And San Francisco is no different. At SF’s prestigious Lowell High School, one of two, magnet schools in our city, and the oldest high school west of the Mississippi, Black students make up only 2% of the student population, as compared to 9% of SFUSD’s overall student population.
Not only are students underrepresented at the school, they often face daily microagressions. Last year, Black students staged a walkout when a student posted a racially insensitive (read: racist) display in the library mocking Black History Month.
It’s disheartening to think, that after 40 years, Black students in our elite public schools are still expressing a need for cultural visibility and “safe spaces” on campus. As Tsia Blacksher, a Lowell senior states in a report from KALW:
“Being black at Lowell is a struggle. And for them [referring to the Black Alumni speaking about starting a Black student group] to be talking about the same things that we’re going through now50 Years Later, It's Still Tough Being Young, Gifted and Black - SF Public School MomSF Public School Mom: