Higher-order thinking involves the ability to problem-solve and, often, to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas simultaneously. So, it’s only fitting that this principle applies to Seattle Public Schools, which is apparently pretty good at teaching advanced concepts to kids.
At least, to certain kinds of kids.
That’s the upshot from data released jointly by Stanford University and Harvard University, comparing the performance of school districts across the country down to the most granular level. The report — which measures scores, attendance and growth in learning before and after the pandemic for different student groups — shows, on the one hand, that kids in Seattle perform, on average, much better than their peers in other large cities.
But drill down to specifics, and the numbers get ugly: Black and low-income children in Seattle are more than four grade levels behind their white and affluent classmates.
Here’s an example: While middle-class and affluent students in Seattle ranked in the 93rd percentile for math, low-income students were down in the 34th percentile. Similar chasms show up in reading.
These gaps are significantly wider than those between students in other cities like Boston and San Diego.
“The data is screaming at us,” said SPS’ new superintendent, Ben Shuldiner. “There are specific populations of children that we are not serving.”
Yes, thousands of them.
Every morning, as Shuldiner knows, 20,000 students wake up inside the boundaries of Seattle Public Schools and go somewhere else to get educated — either to private schools, charter schools or other districts.
Conventional wisdom holds that these are children whose parents feel they aren’t sufficiently challenged in SPS. But considering the Stanford data, maybe it’s other families — those with students who are struggling — that should be running for the exits.
Sean Reardon, who studies poverty in education and co-authored the Stanford study, says Seattle’s overall success masks “enormous inequality.” In fact, SPS has some of the largest achievement gaps in the U.S., a fact that has been the shame of this city for years and only worsened during the past decade.
Not for lack of attention. Seattle has focused millions of dollars and plenty of mental energy on Black students through efforts like the Office of African American Male Achievement. What’s missing is accountability (and proven interventions like high-dosage tutoring).
It’s no wonder Shuldiner is working hard to highlight Seattle’s strengths. A major test of his tenure will be whether he is able to attract all families back to SPS, which would boost the district’s finances as well as its image.
But in this case, the devil really is in the details.
