Do you know how to ensure your child’s academic success in South Orange-Maplewood School District (SOMA)?

Be white and wealthy.

That’s according to a damning new report  by a research team that conducted an eight-month “equity audit” of SOMA schools. The results point to overclassification of Black students in special education, under-enrollment of Black students in accelerated and AP courses (especially math), and disproportionate disciplinary actions taken against Black students compared to white students.

Actually, you hardly have to read the report. All you have to do is look at the DOE database. According to the most recent data on student proficiency, 77.5% white students (who comprise 54% of the district) are proficient in reading while only 37% of Black students (who comprise 24% of the district) are proficient in reading. In math, 72% of students are proficient while 32% of Black students meet grade-level expectations. White students represent 72% of enrollment in AP courses while Black students represent 27% of enrollment. Even the high school graduation rate speaks to racial and income disparities: 95% of white students graduate in four years but only 83% of Black students do.  

This new report, which covers the period October 2022-June 2023, excavates these disparities in great depth and reveals the plight of Black students in SOMA.  A few examples:

• Black students are 80 to 90% more likely compared to students of all races to be identified as disabled. White students are between 40 to 50% less likely compared to all others to be identified with a disability. 

• Black students, while comprising only 25% of district enrollment, represent 64% of students receiving disciplinary action. 

• Black students are 60% less likely compared to all other students to enroll in accelerated math courses and have only “limited access to rigorous instruction compared to their white counterparts, further concretizing this idea of pre-determined pathways based on students’ 6th grade math placement.”

Of course, these disparities aren’t unique to SOMA: consider the story of Sania Anderson at Kingsway Regional High school. Yet the differences in academic outcomes are more pronounced in a district where the median home price is $877,000 and median household income is north of $150K. Why? A SOMA teacher explains: “white families go get private tutoring. They would go to Kumon, they’d go to Huntington.” The report confirms, “In focus groups, educators and students commonly cited tutoring as an essential part of educational success in SOMSD.”

The disproportion of special education classifications is also revealing. Black parents in SOMA (like Sania’s mother in Kingsway) are more likely to fight back against classifications  because they recognize the label lowers expectations for achievement. Conversely, white parents fight for it: 

“Families will seek the evaluation of a private doctor outside the school system in order to enter the I&RS [Intervention and Referral Services] cycle to get a 504 plan or IEP for their child. Meanwhile, families who do not have access to private tutoring or a private neuropsychic evaluation are either languishing in the process waiting for services or they may reject them because of the fear of stigma.”

None of this is new to SOMA. What makes this particular district jump out is the extraordinary amount of lip service and virtue-signalling about racial equity. Here’s a timeline:

• 2010: The Oranges & Maplewood NAACP sought the assistance of the national NAACP in deciding whether to file a suit against the district “to address the segregated school environment, which exists within the South Orange/Maplewood school district.”
• 2014: The ACLU of New Jersey, the ACLU Racial Justice Program, and the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project of UCLA filed a complaint against the district alleging that “academic tracking and the frequent use of out-of-school suspensions” by the the district violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The plaintiffs “seek to vindicate the rights of all SOMSD students—including Black and Hispanic students, students with disabilities, and especially Black students with disabilities—who are disproportionately harmed by out-of school suspension policies and practices in the District.” 
• 2017: A review by Propublica found Black students in the district are, on average, academically three grades behind their white peers and are five times likelier to be suspended than white students.
• 2019: A report commissioned by the Board by Ryan Coughlan (for a NJ Ed Report analysis of some of his research, see here) found “an appalling racial disciplinary gap” within the district. Specifically, “Black students face a disproportionate number of in-school and out-of-school suspensions. While white students make up 52% of the district, they only receive 20% of suspensions. Simultaneously, Black students receive 70% of suspensions despite only making up 33% of the district’s population. In 2015, Black students missed 510 days of schooling as a result of out-of-school suspensions. White students missed 92 days of schooling as a result of out-of-school suspensions.” The report  accurately describes wide proficiency gaps between Black, white, and Asian students.
• 2020: The Board agreed to a settlement with a local community group called the Black Parents Workshop. The federal agreement “recognizes the strides the District has already made under the leadership of Superintendent, Ronald G. Taylor” yet notes that in 2015 Black students, who represent about 33% of the district enrollment (it’s down to 25% now), missed 510 days of schooling as a result of out-of-school suspensions but white students, who make up 52% of the district, only missed 92 days due to out-of-school suspensions.

Yet, according to the new equity audit, the last thirteen years of effort has yielded little improvement.

“I still believe,” muses one teacher, “that there’s a lot of bias and even teacher bias.”