Who is the new CEO of the School District of Philadelphia?

How do school districts determine what minorities to list? Can we petition for change?

• How do school districts determine what minorities to list? Can we petition for change? I'm in Philadelphia. Our community is an ethnic enclave area; we have a significant number of 1st and 2nd generation immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa. The members of these populations are under represented in our demographics, because the School District of Philadelphia does not include an appropriate option when polling parents. Most parents from these areas either select "Caucasian" or "Other" when providing information regarding their ethnicity. I will note that "other" does not constitute a minority because the ethnicity has to be specific. To have a subgroup recognized for the purpose of standardized tests (and I believe Title I), a school needs to have a minimum of 40 students in grades 3, 4, and 5. Our Arabic speaking population of students is probably around 15-20% of our enrolled students; well above the 40 required to have the subgroup considered. Most of these students are bilingual, speaking Arabic at home yet not receiving ESOL support at school. Our school has a very high number of students from low-SES backgrounds, and again many of the students I am referring to are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants. First, what steps would be the best to take to have this subgroup of students included in the District's demographic data? Second, I understand that the success of these students can be tracked and monitored for the purpose of standardized tests, and could help to create additional opportunities for our school to receive Title I funding; can you provide the advantages to having a subgroup identified? Thanks so much for your help! Additional Details I believe that in the case of PSSA, schools that have high minority populations can get extra bonus points (not money) toward making AYP if they can demonstrate that students in minority populations have performed better than the previous year (10% increase I think is the target there). It helps schools that face the special challenges of high immigrant and low-SES populations obtain their goals as they work to minimize and close the achievement gap. In reality, our school is performing much better than what they appear to be on paper, because such a large immigrant population isn't being recognized by the district yet we still make AYP. This year will be rough though, and I think it's time that our school make a move toward having our demographics more accurate.

• Answer:

  My guess is this is the kind of change that would need to be implemented on the state or even the federal level. Because for things like NCLB one needs to compare "apples to apples," they need to collect data using the same classifications as everyone else. You could speak to the school board about tracking that data for the district's own use, and you could also research whatever benefits would accrue from having those groups identified. I suspect the costs would outweigh the benefits, but I could be wrong. Also, you may want to consider the fact that people from the Middle East are actually different ethnic groups from people from North Africa (though there was a lot of intermixing during the spread of Islam, they descend from different ethnicities) and that they're all properly classified as caucasian as it's accurately defined. I'm not saying a "subgroup" wouldn't be useful or a good idea, but it's not technically accurate.