Approximately 400 people marched from MCPS headquarters to the Montgomery County courthouse to raise awareness about the widening academic achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and white and Asian students.

There are 11 MSP branches in high schools across the county that organize fundraisers, sponsor retreats and bring attention to the achievement gap.

“We are establishing a bond in our school that says minority achievement deserves attention,” said Fatima Binta, the advisor for Northwood High School’s MSP chapter.

MSP was founded in 2005 by Michael Williams, a teacher at Walter Johnson HS. Since then, the club has been holding annual retreats to attract members from schools around the county.

County officials attended the march, including Superintendent Joshua Starr and other Board of Education (BOE) members. Starr assured the crowd gathered at the steps of the County courthouse that MCPS is working towards closing the gap.

Although the BOE supported the march, the achievement gap in MCPS has widened over the past few years. The county has not made any noticeable efforts to close the achievement gap, and 11 out of 25 MCPS schools are high-poverty schools, according to the County Council’s Office of Legislative Oversight’s annual report on the performance of MCPS schools.

At Whitman, the achievement gap is most noticeable when looking at SAT scores. Data shows a gap between the scores of the African American students, and the white and Asian students, Principal Alan Goodwin said.

Goodwin recognized that extracurricular activities, including sports and clubs can be helpful in keeping students motivated. “We’re trying to come up with programs that are interesting to all students so they’ll want to be at school,” Goodwin said.

Junior Skylar Mitchell is currently the only MSP member at Whitman, but she hopes to expand the club to recruit more students in the future.

“I know that I am definitely going to do an MSP next year at Whitman, and try to get students of all kinds across Whitman to try and join,” she said. “Then, we can join with other schools and see what we can try to do to tackle this issue.”

March to Close the Gap from The Black & White Online on Vimeo.