Class of Diversity Gets Diplomas

Ethnic, Racial Identities Changing in Montgomery County

Linda Perlstein, Washington Post, Jun. 6

Jerry D. Weast, superintendent of Montgomery County schools, spent last week watching graduating seniors traverse stages to receive their diplomas—including students who got their starts in Kenya, El Salvador, Vietnam, Iran and many other countries.

He watched the audience members as well.

“Sometimes you see an ’aha’ in the crowd,” Weast said, “the realization of what we’ve been saying all along: ’It’s not coming. It’s here.’”

“It” is the most racially and ethnically diverse graduating class the county has seen, and likely the last to be majority-white, according to school system data. Since the seniors graduating this month started kindergarten, the student body of Montgomery County public schools has grown larger by 16,000 Hispanics, 12,000 blacks, 7,000 Asians and 100 Native Americans. The number of non-Hispanic white students has declined by 3,000.

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As Montgomery County has grown more diverse in those 15 years, however, a smaller percentage of students are attending schools whose racial balance matches the county’s in aggregate. The share of students attending public schools that are either predominantly white or predominantly minority has increased from 21 percent to 41 percent, according to a Washington Post analysis confirmed by a school system demographer. (A school is considered predominantly white or minority if its white or minority student percentage is at least 20 percentage points higher than the county total.)

Read the rest of this story here.