Last Updated: May 2009
IOWA CITY – The district-wide achievement gap between white and African American and Hispanic students is twice as large as both the state and national achievement gap. Minority groups are often isolated by enrollment boundaries, which produce student bodies that are less diverse than Iowa City residential neighborhoods.
District officials say that the community’s desire to have neighborhood schools shape existing enrollment boundaries. “The community believes in neighborhood schools,” district Asst. Superintendent Ann Feldmann stated.
Former Iowa City Mayor and current district Equity Director Ross Wilburn acknowledged that while external factors contribute to where residents choose to live, existing enrollment boundaries primarily dictate which school a neighborhood’s students attend.
However, University of Iowa Professor and expert on educational policy Rene Rocha believes such boundaries to be disadvantageous for minorities and low-income students.
“Boundaries drawn on neighborhood lines of high ethnic and socioeconomic status perpetuate inequality in K-12 education,” Rocha stated.
Isolated Enrollment
While district officials look at the existing racial composition of neighborhoods as a source of the district’s isolated racial enrollments, Iowa City schools are, in fact, less diverse than neighborhoods are.
According to a U.S. Census data analysis for 2000, the most recent national census, Iowa City’s school enrollment boundaries are more heavily drawn along racial lines than neighborhood lines. In their research, the Lewis Mumford Center at Albany University found that Iowa City’s white and African American students are 32 percent more isolated in education than they are in residence and white and Hispanic students are 41 percent more isolated.
Currently, Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and Grant Wood Elementary Schools have minority enrollments that are approximately twice that of the district average. Each has a minority enrollment above 60 percent, while only 31 percent of the district’s students are minorities.
Similarly, they represent three of the four elementary schools with the highest enrollment eligible for free and reduced price lunches, a common predictor of at-risk students, with more than 57 percent of students eligible for the program, while only 26 percent of the district’s students are eligible.
Conversely, eight Iowa City elementary schools have minority enrollments below 25 percent. Also, these schools represent eight of the nine lowest low-income enrollments in the district with 25 percent or fewer eligible for free and reduced price lunches, according to the ICCSD Enrollment Report and Iowa Department of Education documents.
Achievement Gap
The achievement gap between white students and African American and Hispanic students in reading and math proficiency is significantly wider in Iowa City than it is either statewide or nationwide. In the district, the 45 percent achievement gap in fourth grade is twice that of the Iowa average (22 percent) and almost twice that of the national average (27 percent), according to the ICCSD Enrollment Report and Iowa and U.S. Departments of Education documents.
Similarly, the district’s low-income elementary students perform worse than state and national averages for low-income students. District students eligible for free and reduced lunch programs perform 16 percent worse than state averages and 7 percent worse than national averages. There is 35 percent achievement gap between high and low-income students in the district.
Significant achievement gaps are also present among schools with higher minority and low-income enrollments. On the fourth grade level Iowa test of Basic Skills and the Iowa Tests of Educational Development there is a 23 percent achievement gap in reading and math proficiency between the four schools with the highest and the four with the lowest minority enrollments. Similarly, the achievement gap between the four schools with the highest and the four with the lowest low-income enrollments is 30 percent, according to Iowa Department of Education District Profiles.
District Policies
The Iowa City school district focuses on the cultural underpinnings to the discrepancy in test data, which it aims to address in its equitable educational programs.
“There is a differentiation in cultural competence,” district Asst. Superintendent Feldmann stated. We’re trying to “provide appropriate educational programs addressing cultural competence.”
While the district focuses on cultural competence programs, the achievement gap has grown at the fourth grade level. From 2004 to 2007, the achievement gap between white and African American and Hispanic students grew by ten percent. In that same period, the statewide achievement gap between those groups decreased by one percent.
Also, despite a marginally decreasing achievement gap as a student progresses through the system, in high school the gap between white and minority students is still 35 percent and the gap between high and low-income students widens to 44 percent.
“The difference has to do with historical, societal, cultural and economic shifts,” Dr. Ruth White, former director of the Iowa Department of Human Rights and consultant in cultural competence, said. “You cannot address these with a single program, you cannot address these with a single phrase, cultural competence.”
The strong correlation between the district’s isolated minority enrollment and failing test grades for minorities points toward the boundaries as a primary source of academic inequity.
“We discuss boundaries when we can, which is usually when we build a new school,” Equity Director Wilburn stated.
However, a recent demonstration of this policy portrays the flaws behind it. Enrollment projections for the new Buford Garner Elementary School show that only Van Allen and Penn Elementary Schools will be affected.
Startlingly, Van Allen, which has the district’s second lowest minority enrollment, is likely to become the district’s least diverse school after its minority enrollment decreases by three percent, according to district documents. Penn’s minority enrollment, the district’s sixth lowest, will also slightly drop.
Officials say that a master redrawing of enrollment boundaries is unlikely. “We do as the community asks of us” and we’re not going to change boundaries “unless the community asks for it,” Feldman added. District Superintendent Lane Plugge declined to comment in this article.
Professor Rocha believes that desegregating the district would benefit all students. “If minority students were spread throughout the district, their performance would go up; increased diversity has been found to increase performance for all students, including whites” Rocha stated.
“The more diversity that students experience the more their educational opportunities are broadened,” White added. “Diversity enriches the learning climate for all students.”
School | Minority Enrollment (%) | Low-Income Enrollment (%) | Reading Proficiency (%) | Math Proficiency (%) |
Twain | 61.62 | 66.9 | 61.9 | 50.57 |
Roosevelt | 60.82 | 57.3 | 63.27 | 65.96 |
Wood | 60.78 | 62.0 | 67.00 | 56.10 |
Kirkwood | 50.80 | 56.3 | 51.72 | 63.64 |
Mann | 41.04 | 47.6 | 74.55 | 69.09 |
Hills | 35.71 | 58.2 | 43.75 | 46.88 |
Lucas | 34.91 | 38.5 | 70.65 | 65.14 |
Weber | 34.26 | 14.8 | 90.08 | 90.91 |
C. Central | 28.81 | 30.0 | 82.52 | 81.73 |
Lincoln | 26.48 | 2.8 | 91.30 | 89.86 |
Horn | 24.82 | 13.6 | 92.31 | 88.46 |
Longfellow | 21.97 | 21.1 | 86.49 | 90.54 |
Penn | 21.91 | 24.6 | 81.61 | 78.16 |
Hoover | 21.24 | 17.3 | 81.16 | 78.26 |
Lemme | 19.19 | 25.3 | 83.08 | 84.48 |
Shimek | 17.80 | 12.6 | 85.25 | 85.25 |
Van Allen | 15.05 | 20.5 | 78.30 | 76.42 |
Wickham | 13.16 | 3.9 | 86.67 | 86.67 |
DISTRICT | 31.28 | 25.8 | 75.4 | 75.5 |
***Minority enrollment data via ICCSD Enrollment Report***
***Low income enrollment via Iowa Department of Education Documents***
***School fourth grade test data via Iowa Department of Education District Profile***
***District fourth grade test data via ICCSD Progress Report***
Group | Iowa City Proficiency | Iowa Proficiency | National Proficiency | |||
Reading (%) | Math (%) | Reading (%) | Math (%) | Reading (%) | Math (%) | |
White | 85.0 | 85.9 | 80.2 | 80.9 | 77 | 91 |
African American | 41.3 | 38.7 | 55.8 | 54.6 | 46 | 63 |
Hispanic | 41.1 | 39.0 | 61.4 | 64.5 | 49 | 69 |
Low-Income | 53.9 | 46.6 | 64.7 | 67.7 | 57.4 | 55.9 |
High-Income | 84.2 | 85.6 | -- | -- | -- | -- |
***Iowa City fourth grade proficiency data via ICCSD Progress Report***
***Iowa fourth grade proficiency data via Iowa Department of Education State Report Card***
***National fourth grade proficiency data via U.S. Department of Education FY 2008
Performance & Accountability Report***
