Carlmont's demographics shift
Half of the students in California aren’t white.
This may seem like a shocking statistic considering America’s historically homogeneous racial makeup, but with time, the average American student portrays new streaks of diversity.
California is already ahead of the rest of the nation, being a majority-minority state (not having a single racial or ethnic majority), whereas U.S. will achieve this status by 2055, according to Pew Research.
In data found by the National Center for Education Statistics, children of color became the new majority in America’s public schools in 2014.
Over the last 20 years, the number of Hispanic public schoolchildren has more than doubled, and the number of Asians has swelled by 56 percent. The number of black students and American Indians grew far more modestly, but the number of white students fell by about 15 percent.
Carlmont student Roy Zhao, a senior, is one student who immigrated from China to the U.S. in 2016.
“The reason why I came here was probably because student life in China is boring. We barely have time to do extracurricular stuff during the school year since everyone just works very hard to prepare for entrance exam to high school or college,” Zhao said. “Education and the job market here is a lot better.”
However, this shift in racial makeup has come with its challenges.
There are still disparities between different ethnicities and their socioeconomic place in society, even in the diverse Bay Area.
David Talcott, a teacher who commutes two hours from his town, Antioch, noted that although American society has become more diverse, there is still racial separation that exists.
With a more diverse racial demographic, there has been an impact on the image that certain schools portray, even in the lowest forms of education.
“The elementary school that my son is set to go to in one year is ranked 1/10 on Great Schools largely because of the racial problems dealing with the poverty, the violence, and things of that nature that you don’t want to associate with the school,” Talcott said.
In the recent Carlmont WASC visit, the committee noted that there’s a problem in how the same mainstream groups dominate honors courses, while certain subgroups are falling behind.
“When we are talking about closing achievement gaps, we are talking about closing subgroups who are scoring lower than the primary groups at this school,” Talcott said.
And Talcott is right.
Carlmont’s student body is not majority minority. This has caused more attention to the achievement gaps so that all students are given equal opportunities.
This achievement gap not only happens at Carlmont, but also nationwide.
According to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, black and Latino students make up 37 percent of high school students but only 27 percent of students taking an AP class and 18 percent of students passing AP exams.
Although education systems are making efforts to help bridge the gap between the racial disparities, it can sometimes be challenging as different cultures or families can value different attributes.
Talcott said, “When you’re talking about race, the individual is really an amazing thing. One of the reasons they are scoring lower is because we are testing them in the same way towards the strengths of the groups that are already scoring well, so we’re missing the whole student.”
Ultimately, the demographic divide has created contrasts in the education system. Now, it’s a matter of adapting to the ever changing “average” student to allow for widespread educational opportunity.
“It’s not a level playing field. There’s so much more depth to people than we see at school and it’s sad that we have to have things like achievement gaps when the problem is that they aren’t achieving, it’s that they aren't achieving as much at the things we’re testing them on,” Talcott said.
This may seem like a shocking statistic considering America’s historically homogeneous racial makeup, but with time, the average American student portrays new streaks of diversity.
California is already ahead of the rest of the nation, being a majority-minority state (not having a single racial or ethnic majority), whereas U.S. will achieve this status by 2055, according to Pew Research.
In data found by the National Center for Education Statistics, children of color became the new majority in America’s public schools in 2014.
Over the last 20 years, the number of Hispanic public schoolchildren has more than doubled, and the number of Asians has swelled by 56 percent. The number of black students and American Indians grew far more modestly, but the number of white students fell by about 15 percent.
Carlmont student Roy Zhao, a senior, is one student who immigrated from China to the U.S. in 2016.
“The reason why I came here was probably because student life in China is boring. We barely have time to do extracurricular stuff during the school year since everyone just works very hard to prepare for entrance exam to high school or college,” Zhao said. “Education and the job market here is a lot better.”
However, this shift in racial makeup has come with its challenges.
There are still disparities between different ethnicities and their socioeconomic place in society, even in the diverse Bay Area.
David Talcott, a teacher who commutes two hours from his town, Antioch, noted that although American society has become more diverse, there is still racial separation that exists.
With a more diverse racial demographic, there has been an impact on the image that certain schools portray, even in the lowest forms of education.
“The elementary school that my son is set to go to in one year is ranked 1/10 on Great Schools largely because of the racial problems dealing with the poverty, the violence, and things of that nature that you don’t want to associate with the school,” Talcott said.
In the recent Carlmont WASC visit, the committee noted that there’s a problem in how the same mainstream groups dominate honors courses, while certain subgroups are falling behind.
“When we are talking about closing achievement gaps, we are talking about closing subgroups who are scoring lower than the primary groups at this school,” Talcott said.
And Talcott is right.
Carlmont’s student body is not majority minority. This has caused more attention to the achievement gaps so that all students are given equal opportunities.
This achievement gap not only happens at Carlmont, but also nationwide.
According to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, black and Latino students make up 37 percent of high school students but only 27 percent of students taking an AP class and 18 percent of students passing AP exams.
Although education systems are making efforts to help bridge the gap between the racial disparities, it can sometimes be challenging as different cultures or families can value different attributes.
Talcott said, “When you’re talking about race, the individual is really an amazing thing. One of the reasons they are scoring lower is because we are testing them in the same way towards the strengths of the groups that are already scoring well, so we’re missing the whole student.”
Ultimately, the demographic divide has created contrasts in the education system. Now, it’s a matter of adapting to the ever changing “average” student to allow for widespread educational opportunity.
“It’s not a level playing field. There’s so much more depth to people than we see at school and it’s sad that we have to have things like achievement gaps when the problem is that they aren’t achieving, it’s that they aren't achieving as much at the things we’re testing them on,” Talcott said.