Kansas City: Black and Hispanic students in area schools are far less likely than white students to be enrolled in gifted programs or accelerated into early algebra classes

Furthermore, black and Hispanic students are more likely to be held back a grade, and black students in particular are far more likely to be sent to in-school or out-of-school suspension. In Kansas, in the area’s five largest districts, black and Hispanic students made up 28.4% of the total enrollment, but represented just 7.2% of the students in gifted programs and 10.3% of the students in early algebra. However, they made up 64% of the students who were held back to repeat a grade, 50.5% of the students sent to in-school suspension and 63.4% of the students sent to out-of-school suspension.