Seattle is a city that prides itself as an incubator of innovative technology, leftist policies and progressive agendas. Now, as a growing hub for young professionals, Seattle is too conscious, too green and too literate to allow its public school system to fail our children. Wait, our Black children.
Perhaps so many people have hopped on the “progressive” bandwagon that social justice conversations conjured over coffee have become casual and inauthentic. Have our conversations become a façade of the liberal Seattle wardrobe?
When will we finally acknowledge that, despite Seattle’s many accolades and its economic growth, we continue to fuel systems that historically and continuously fail people of color? It’s time to confront institutionalized racism in a real and powerful way — beginning in our schools.
Fewer than half of Black third-graders are meeting proficiency in math and reading. In 2011, The Seattle Times reported an achievement gap: 36 percent of Black students who speak English at home passed their grade’s math test, while 47 percent of students who speak Somali as their primary language passed, both lower than the district average of 70 percent. In a recent article, The Seattle Times cited the Stanford University Center for Education Policy Analysis study on Black and White student achievement gaps, which indicated Seattle schools have the largest achievement gap between Black and White students in the state. Black students are testing nearly three and a half grade levels behind their White counterparts.
The racial achievement gap is exacerbated by school segregation and disproportionate minority suspension rates in Seattle. Thirty percent of Seattle’s schools are segregated (more than 20 of the 98 Seattle Public Schools are comprised of 80 percent or more students of color). Other studies show that African American youth in Seattle Public Schools are four times more likely to be suspended than White youth.
The disproportionality in student achievement, segregation and discipline rates violates the human rights of Seattle’s young people of color. International human rights law recognizes that all children should be taught in a safe and nurturing environment that supports their social, emotional and academic development. Article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that the “education of the child shall be directed to the development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities, to their fullest potential.” The fullest potential — not halfhearted, but fullest. Instead, Black students spend more time outside of school due to suspension and expulsion.
Inhumane and degrading forms of punishment are not the way to treat our children. The use of punitive discipline and zero-tolerance approaches take students out of learning environments and make them more susceptible to falling behind in school or interacting with the criminal justice system and/or engaging in criminal activity. We cannot continue to fail our youth of color or funnel our Black children into the prison system via the school-to-prison pipeline.
The Seattle Public School District needs equity-based reform. From curriculum development to after-school programming to staff training, the district needs to redirect its education system toward culturally competent, anti-racist and
trauma-informed services. These investments — benefiting teachers, staff and students — must be genuine and authentic, not just an annual cultural competency training to mark a check-box or a reactionary agenda to combat a negative news story. Real racial equity requires urgent and intentional long-term strategies to address Seattle’s widening disparities and will undoubtedly require holistic partnership with affected parents and families.
As a Human Rights City, it is imperative that Seattle’s elected leaders, community members and school officials work collectively to end this normalized behavior of allowing youth of color, particularly Black youth, to be underserved and over-disciplined.
Marcel Baugh serves as a co-chair of the Seattle Human Rights Commission and Amy Huang serves as the secretary of the Seattle Human Rights Commission.