Eighty percent of its students are from Harlem's low-income families. Demographics like those spell education disaster in most schools, but not at Frederick Douglas. In English and pre-calculus examinations, the passing rates were 88 and 87 percent, respectively. On the opposite side of the nation, in Los Angeles' sea of education squalor, sits Marcus Garvey School. Its black students routinely score two or three or more years above grade level in core subjects.
Advanced mathematics is routine.
Nationwide, schools with 75 percent low-income black students typically score below the 35th percentile on national exams, while black students in the 21 schools in Samuel Carter's report score at least at the 65th percentile and most instances higher. Education experts produce all manner of excuses for the academic failure of black students. They talk about racial discrimination, poverty, crime, drugs, classes too large, too little money for education and sometimes the legacy of slavery. The reason why there's academic excellence in the schools is that the principals accept no excuses for failure. Non-compliance means immediate dismissal.