Did you know that Seattle Public Schools has an Office of African American Male Achievement? SPS is the first school district in Washington — and one of the first in the country — to have a department focused on accelerating the success of Black boys.
We commend Seattle Public Schools for targeting special attention and resources on helping Black boys.
“By ensuring Black male students thrive, conditions will improve for all students in Seattle Public Schools.”
– Office of African American Male Achievement (AAMA), Seattle Public Schools
Note: All of the information in this blog post comes from SPS’s website. We hope to connect with some of the leaders of AAMA soon to learn more and support their work.
AAMA is led by Dr. Mia Williams
SPS Superintendent Denise Juneau established AAMA in 2019 and appointed Dr. Mia Williams as its executive director. Announcing the appointment, Juneau said:
“For almost three decades, Dr. Williams has led transformational change in Seattle Public Schools, most recently as the principal at Aki Kurose Middle School. Under Mia’s leadership, students’ social, emotional, and academic success have increased dramatically. The school’s student-centered approach and innovative programs focused on African American Male achievement have become a model for others — here in Seattle and nationally.”
– SPS Superintendent Denise Juneau
(Image obtained from SPS website)
Are Black boys worse off than Black girls?
In his important piece “Boys, Race, and California Schools“, Sean Kullman of Global Initiative for Boys and Men found that in California boys of all races do worse than their female counterparts of the same race on various measurements of educational performance, including:
- rates of graduating high school
- rates of meeting UC/CSU college entrance requirements
- rates of earning the State Seal of Biliteracy
- rates of earning the Golden State Seal Merit Diploma
Washington Initiative for Boys and Men has not yet analyzed data for Washington or Seattle to confirm whether the same pattern exists here of girls outperforming boys within each racial category. There is no reason to believe it does not. (Contact us if you can help with this research project.)
Related: See WIBM’s webpage on Gender Inequality in K-12 Education
Strangely, none of AAMA’s webpages provide statistics showing how well Black boys in Seattle are doing compared to Black girls. The existence of an Office of African American Male Achievement does beg that question. That data is essential for seeing the full scope of educational disparities Seattle should address. An op-ed in The Seattle Times co-written by Dr. Williams mentions one statistic: 72% of Black males in Seattle graduate high school within four years (class of 2018). The reader is left wondering how that compares to the graduation rate of Black females.
If Black girls in Seattle outperform Black boys educationally, and White girls in Seattle outperform White boys, and American Indian girls in Seattle outperform American Indian boys, and Asian girls in Seattle outperform Asian boys, and Hispanic girls in Seattle outperform Hispanic boys, etc., then there is a gender-based component to educational disparities that we must be willing to confront.
Why create the AAMA?
Why did Seattle Public Schools create a department focused on African American males? They explain it this way:
“In 2019, after deeply examining the district’s longitudinal data across multiple measures (i.e. academic, discipline, attendance), it was clear that past initiatives had done very little to transform the experiences, access, or educational attainment of African American male students. District data confirms that African American boys and young men are the furthest away from educational justice… While our initial focus is on supporting African American boys and young men, we also believe this approach will improve outcomes for all students.”
– Seattle Public Schools
Where can Seattle’s parents, teachers, policymakers, and media view the “longitudinal data across multiple measures” that the district examined? It would be helpful if SPS provided a link to it?
The data may reveal that SPS’s five-year strategic plan, called Seattle Excellence, should not only focus on students of color but also on boys.
Underperforming schools are especially bad for boys
An article in The Washington Post, “The serious reason boys do worse than girls in school,” is worth a read. A team of economists from MIT, Northwestern, and the University of Florida performed sophisticated analysis on a vast collection of data from the state of Florida. They found two things:
- A disadvantaged upbringing partly produces the gender gap. “Girls from disadvantaged backgrounds are much more likely to succeed than boys raised under the same circumstances.” (emphasis added)
- Schools themselves partly produce the gender gap. “Bad schools exacerbate the differences in academic achievement between boys and girls,” not only on test scores but suspensions and absences too.
Says David Autor, economics professor at MIT and an author of the study:
“This just adds to the overall panoply of evidence that disadvantageous childhood conditions are particularly pernicious for boys, leading to lower test scores, more behavior problems, lower rates of employment in early adulthood, and even higher rates of incarceration.”
The article concludes: “It’s unlucky enough to be born to a poor family, to grow up in a poor neighborhood and attend bad schools. As recent research shows, it’s doubly unlucky to be a boy facing those circumstances.”
Related: Read WIBM’s piece “Single-parent households are 30% of Washington’s households with children“