September 19, 2022 by Ciara Meyer
I have officially spent 2167 days in the Saratoga Springs City School District. By the time I graduate it will be 2340 days. Unlike most students at Saratoga Springs High School, I had the opportunity to opt-out of this experience. My sister switched to private school during her 10th-grade year and my parents gave me the same choice, but I chose to stay at Saratoga. Though I’d probably have a slightly better chance at top colleges if I had made the switch, I see the profound merits in public education and I want to have faith in the system I stayed a part of. Unfortunately, it’s a system that’s failing a substantial portion of students.
According to US News, Saratoga Springs High School is ranked number 2303 out of 18000 public high schools in the country. That puts us close to the top 10%, based on our college readiness, math and reading proficiency, graduation rate, and other similar factors. As a school that performs so much higher than so many others we should be exceptional, but, in actuality, we are just okay.
The US News college readiness index ranks us at a measly 46.2/100, and the gap between our non-underserved and underserved students on state exams is 15.7%. Our school greatly lacks racial diversity, with only 9.2% minority enrollment, but we have profound socioeconomic diversity with nearly 20% of our students qualifying as economically disadvantaged. With so many of our students coming from economically underprivileged backgrounds, we should be better at serving their needs, but we still see them falling short compared to peers.
Based on pre-Covid closure data, New York State ranks us as having our economically disadvantaged students in “good standing.” You would think this would be a comfort, but really it just illuminates how far short other schools are falling. Overall, Saratoga’s chronic absenteeism rate is 17.9%. For economically disadvantaged students, it’s 37.8%, with 168 out of our 378 chronically absent students coming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Overall, our 4-year graduation rate is 93.4%, but for economically disadvantaged students it’s over 10% lower. As the 219th best school out of 1218 in the state, it’s sad to see that we are just barely above the overall average when it comes to serving disadvantaged students.
As someone who absolutely loves the concept of education as a great equalizer, who wholeheartedly believes in the mission of public education, I want to believe that schools like SSHS are serving all of their students. However, if I chose to believe that I would be ignoring the cold, hard, truth. Even as one of the better schools in the state, we are failing a large portion of our students. I don’t purport to be an expert on this issue, and I recognize that this is a pervasive problem across the country. The most successful solutions to the disparities in student outcomes along socioeconomic lines are more likely to come at the state or federal levels, rather than district, as issues such as universal pre-k and funding through property taxes greatly exacerbate outcome gaps. However, there are steps that can be taken locally to at least attempt to address our community’s problem.
According to data compiled by Public Impact and the Oak Foundation, there are some key school-level causes for outcome gaps and some clear pathways toward shrinking them. From a school policy standpoint mitigating discipline bias, providing more accurate and accessible subgroup data when it comes to outcomes, having flexible advanced tracks, and combatting under-referral to advanced programs all could help decrease our outcome gap. Training for teachers to combat implicit bias against low-income students and hiring teachers of more diverse backgrounds are also proven ways to improve outcomes for students of color and socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Improving access to enrichment programs and free tutoring, and offering better screening for educational delays and developmental disabilities would also mitigate our outcome issue.
How exactly to go about solving these problems is varied school-to-school, and the solutions provided by Public Impact and the Oak Foundation are not entirely applicable to SSHS, but they can serve as a jumping-off point. If SSHS has an interest in closing the ever-widening outcome gap, perhaps the best first step would be to consult with outside experts who have more knowledge on how to address these matters than our Board of Education or administration does. Our school’s not exactly struggling financially—especially given the influx of COVID stimulus dollars—and perhaps we can use part of our $134,623,813 budget for the 2022-2023 school year to fund that research and a subsequent action plan.
The thing is, I will be fine at Saratoga. I’m in a position of great privilege to be in the position where, if I truly wanted to, I could go to private school. I have two parents with advanced degrees and I have access to tutoring and study resources as much as I need them. I’m not having to work a second job or take care of younger siblings after school, my only real responsibilities are to myself and to my studies. But about 1 out of every 5 students at SSHS is in an incredibly different position than me, and they make up a fairly significant minority. At some point, we need to stop trusting the state reports that say we are in “good standing” when we are clearly failing our students. At some point, we need to stop blaming the higher powers and take steps proven to work towards closing outcome gaps at the local level.
By my graduation day, many of my peers will have also spent 2340 days in the public school system. For these students, local changes in policy tailored towards mitigating outcome disparities could mean the difference between crossing the stage to collect their diplomas and walking away empty-handed.