According to School and District Profles, African American students in Massachusetts make up 9.2% of the state’s public school student body. I was curious about the distribution, family income, and achievement of these students across the Commonwealth. I decided to use income and MCAS data compiled last year alongside newly-collected percentages of African American students for each district to look into this further. Below are my findings.
When looking at over 200 separate districts in the state, the average percentage of African American students per district in Massachusetts is 4.5%. Since 9.2% of all students are African American, this means that the distribution is skewed across the state. In reality, about half of all districts in the state have less than 2.6% African American students. Notably, seven districts have exactly 0% African American students (Leverett, Petersham, Plympton, Rowe, Shutesbury, Westhampton, and Worthington.)
Where, then, are most of our African American students? Here’s a list of the top 10 districts:
Brockton, 60%
Randolph, 50%
Avon, Boston, 30%
Provincetown, 26%
Stoughton, 24%
Cambridge, 23%
Holbrook, 22%
Springfield, Malden, 19%
Looking at the income and MCAS data we also find:
The average income of the top 10 districts listed above is $63,658 while the average income of all Massachusetts districts is $88,319.
The average mean math score of the top 10 districts listed above is 493 while the average mean math score of all Massachusetts districts is 501.
Notable exceptions to the bullet points above: the districts of Cambridge and Milton consist of both above-average percentages of African American students as well as above-average income and test scores.
With the long-overdue spotlight on the plight of African Americans, I wanted to highlight the extremely uneven distribution of our African American students here in Massachusetts. This impacts both the African American students and their White peers, many of whom are growing up in districts with shockingly low numbers of African American students.
Data and sources found here.