The San Francisco NAACP is urging the city school board to declare a state of emergency to spotlight the city’s stark racial gap in student achievement.

We are failing. This board is failing. This city government is failing. And you have professionals in the school district who have woefully failed when it comes to respecting the worth and the dignity of African-American students.

Despite several interventions designed to increase achievement among African-American students, the gap has lingered for more than 25 years, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Although the city is one of the highest-scoring urban districts in the state overall, 74 percent of black students did not meet state standards in at least one subject area in the 2015–16 school year. African-American students represented 7 percent of the district’s students in 2015–16.

More than half of Latino and Pacific Islander students in San Francisco also failed to meet the standards that year. By contrast, only 14.6 percent of whites and 16 percent of Asian Americans did not reach the standards in one subject. A recent analysis by Innovate Public Schools also showed wide racial disparities even among students who were not from low-income families.

Read the full article on the racial achievement gap in San Francisco by Laura Fay at The 74