In Wake and Durham County school districts, black and Hispanic students trail their white counterparts in academic achievement and are more likely to be disciplined, according to a project from ProPublica.
The project uses academic and disciplinary data from the U.S. Department of Education to visualize racial disparities in ninety-six thousand schools across seventeen thousand districts nationwide, comparing how much more likely white students are to be enrolled in AP classes and how much more likely black, Hispanic, and other minority students are to be suspended.
Check out the interactive map here to explore your school system.
White students have more opportunities across the board, but the divide is more apparent in the Southern states, including North Carolina, the data shows. The project also assessed academic segregation between white and black students, with Durham County determined to have “high” segregation and Wake County “medium.”
In Wake County, white students are 2.9 times more likely to enroll in AP classes than black students and 3.1 times more likely than Hispanic students. Black students are 5.6 times more likely to be suspended than white students and Hispanic students 2.5 times more likely to get suspended. Both black and Hispanic students trail about three academic grades behind white students.
White students at Durham County Public Schools are 5.6 times more likely to enroll in AP classes than Hispanic students and 3.5 times more likely than black students. Meanwhile, black students are 2.8 times more likely to be suspended than whites. Hispanic students are 1.6 times more likely to be suspended. As in Wake County, black and Hispanic students tend to score about three academic grades below white students.
The largest achievement gap in the state is in Lenoir County, where white students are 8.5 times more likely to enroll in AP classes.
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