D87 Seeing Progress in Narrowing Minority Achievement Gap

Officials at School District 87 in Glen Ellyn report that the work of the Minority Student Achievement Committee has produced some improvements among African-American and Hispanic students in D87 schools, though there is significant work still to do, the Chicago Tribune reports.

According to the paper, when the MSAC was founded in 2008, they set goals to improve minority academic performance and get minority students involved in extracurricular activites. The statistics are looking better, with a 125 percent increase in Hispanic students (and a 68 percent increase in African-American students) taking AP tests, for instance, the paper said.

"They have really helped her stay focused in school," Bernadette Rainey told the paper, of her 17-year-old daughter Diamond, part of a mentoring program. "If they didn't have the program, I don't know if her learning experience would be the same."

"We're not all the way in getting our minority kids in our rigorous classes that we can, and I am curious to see what that will be like in a few years," MSAC director of research and development Patrick Donohue told the paper.

Read the full story at the Chicago Tribune website.