Forthcoming Mellon Foundation study documents activities that lead to African American success on standardized tests
Only about 5,000 of the roughly 224,000 students who score 1200 or
better on the SAT are African American. And until now, very little has
been known about them and their educational experiences.
A forthcoming study by the Mellon Foundation, in conjunction with
the Urban Institute, begins the process of finding out more about
African American students who score well on these tests. The study will
be an eye-opener for those who believe high-scoring Black students are
identical, experientially, to their White peers.
It finds, for example, that high-scoring African American students
have fewer advantages than their White counterparts. They are also more
likely to come from families with lower incomes and with fewer college
degrees than Whites with similar scores. And although the biggest
concentration of Blacks with high scores attend school in the close-in
suburbs of large cities, in general high-scoring Black students are
much more likely than their White peers to attend school in central
cities –where educational opportunities are often more limited than in
the suburbs.
The study “makes a point that has really been lost,” says Dr. Linda
Darling-Hammond, professor at Stanford University’s School of Education.
“Black kids who score well do so against greater odds than what
White students have to face,” she says. “There’s been this idea in the
press that Black kids have equal opportunities, don’t measure up, and
still want extra opportunities in the form of affirmative action. But
Black kids are achieving against the odds.”
This means, according to the study, that “those charged with
selecting entering classes for prestigious colleges and universities
need to look beyond the numbers — students’ SAT scores -to understand
the challenges that they may have faced in becoming top performers.”
