ST. LOUIS — St. Louis’ NAACP is sounding the alarm over what it calls "systemic educational inequities" impacting Black students in the region.
The association has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education over what it calls educational failures. The organization found Black students in the city are on average more than four grade levels behind the national average in reading, based on Stanford University data focusing on test scores from 2022, the most recent year of data available.
The analysis includes data on both St. Louis Public Schools and public charter schools in the city of St. Louis.
The analysis revealed that reading level declines during the pandemic in St. Louis were, on average, steeper than those in comparable cities like Baltimore, Chicago, and Newark.
“I'm not surprised by the numbers," said Tracey Bloch, who leads the nonprofit the Missouri Disability Empowerment Foundation. “It really validates what we've already been dealing with since we work with special education families who are trying to fight for services for their children. It's really getting more difficult to prove that a learning disability is actually taking place when everyone is universally behind, especially certain subsets of people."
“What needs to be done right now to solve this problem?” asked the I-Team's Paula Vasan.
"We could look at increasing teacher pay, making sure that the training is up to date on how to teach these skills," said Bloch.
The NAACP warns that these educational gaps could have severe consequences for St. Louis students, diminishing their competitiveness in college admissions and job opportunities. The organization is calling for increased funding, innovative teaching methods, and stronger community engagement to address these setbacks.
We reached out to St. Louis Public Schools. No response by our deadline. The Missouri Charter Public School Association tells us in part that while students are making progress, much more work is left to be done.
A U.S. Department of Education spokesperson told us in an email: “The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights does not confirm complaints. Our list of open investigations, updated every Tuesday, is available here. To learn more about how OCR processes cases, please see our case processing manual.”
The Missouri Charter Public School Association’s Executive Director Noah Devine told us in an email: "The Missouri Charter Public School Association (MCPSA) acknowledges the concerns raised by the NAACP regarding the educational disparities in St. Louis. While our students are making progress, and our educators work tirelessly each and every day, including right now at the very start of the school year, we acknowledge that substantially more progress is needed and that we cannot do it alone. All students in Missouri deserve the very best and our schools seek to do that each day and in each minute in the classroom. We look forward to working with anyone who agrees that all of our kids should have a quality education, regardless of race or their family’s financial circumstances. Beyond that, we have requested but have not received a copy of the NAACP's complaint. Without it, we cannot comment at this time regarding the specific complaint."
The NAACP complaint was based on an analysis commissioned by the local Right to Read Coalition, a network of organizations working to improve literacy in the region.