By Emily Alpert
Latino and African-American students in San Diego Unified are gaining ground on the high school exit exam, chipping away at the achievement gap between students of different races and economic classes.
Overall, more San Diego Unified sophomores passed the high school exit exam this year, according to new results released by the state. The gains were especially striking for students of color.
The percentage of Latino students who passed the math exam surged from 66 percent to 79 percent in the past year, a gain of 13 percentage points. White students still outperform them (96 percent passed math) but their gains were smaller. The result is that over the past four years, the gap between white and Latino students in San Diego Unified on the math test shrunk from 25 percentage points to 17. That’s still a problem. But it’s a smaller one.