From The Press of Atlantic City
Wildwood schools seek to bridge educational equity gap
Juliangela Ramirez is taking her first Advanced Placement course this school year, enhancing a high school transcript that already includes dual enrollment courses in Spanish and chemistry.
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Study after study has found that New Jersey — despite its diverse population — has one of the most segregated public school systems in the country. More than a dozen newsrooms covering New Jersey have come together to explain how it came to this, what might be done about it and how segregation affects the student experience.
The series, Segregated, includes reporting from NJ Spotlight News, Gothamist/WNYC and others.
The 16-year-old Wildwood High School junior, who has a 4.3 grade point average and hopes to study biomedical engineering in college, said the encouragement of school staff and her parents’ work ethic contributed to her academic drive, but there were challenges to overcome before she even entered the classroom.
“A lot of Hispanics think that they’re not capable of taking those courses, and I felt like that for a long time as well,” Ramirez said.
Jason Gonzalez, who completed four AP courses — English language and composition, English literature, biology and history — added that being a child of immigrant parents meant he and his siblings were the first to go through the U.S. education system.
Helping its Hispanic students prepare for college is an acute issue for Wildwood High School, where 51.3% of the overall student population is Hispanic and 39.9% is non-Hispanic white, but the AP and dual enrollment courses are made up predominantly of white students, according to the most recent data from the state Dept. of Education.
Of Wildwood’s 11th and 12th grade Hispanic students, 10.3% are taking an AP class, compared with 30.6% of their white counterparts, according to the latest state data.
The Wildwood School District, which does not have an International Baccalaureate program, lags the state for both Hispanic and white students’ participation in advanced courses.
As part of the Segregated collaboration among newsrooms covering New Jersey, The Press of Atlantic City examined the participation rates of students in advanced classes at Wildwood High School, where a majority of students are Latino, and talked with school officials and with students about the issue. Read the full report from The Press of Atlantic City.
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Cover image: Following her graduation from Wildwood High School in June, Ivanies Soto began studying at Atlantic Cape Community College. Matthew Strabuk/The Press of Atlantic City
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