Why it matters

The gap is real, measured, and close to home.

Everything on this page is drawn from public data and published research, cited in full at the bottom. It is the case for why 200+ high school students give up their afternoons every week.

The national picture: unequal by design

$23 billion

In 2019, the school-finance nonprofit EdBuild analyzed federal data and found that predominantly nonwhite school districts received $23 billion less in state and local funding than predominantly white districts — despite serving roughly the same number of students. That worked out to $2,226 less per student.^[1] The pattern held even among poor districts: high-poverty white districts received nearly $1,500 more per student than high-poverty nonwhite districts.^[1]

That analysis used 2015–16 data. The most recent look shows the gap is still there: EdTrust's 2022 analysis of U.S. Census school finance data found districts serving the most Black, Latino, and Native students receive as much as $2,700 less per student in state and local revenue than districts serving the fewest students of color — a 16% gap, worth roughly $13.5 million a year to a 5,000-student district.^[2]

Less money is only part of it. The U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection — a mandatory census of every public school in America — documents what students of color get less of:

• Advanced coursework. Only about 35% of high schools where Black and Latino students exceed three-quarters of enrollment offered calculus, versus 54% of schools where they are under a quarter of enrollment. Black students were 15% of high school enrollment but just 6% of AP math enrollment (2021–22).^[3]
• Certified teachers. About 537,700 students attended schools where fewer than half the teachers met all state certification requirements — and 68% of the students in those schools were Black and Latino (2021–22).^[3]
• The benefit of the doubt. Black students were 15% of enrollment but 28% of referrals to law enforcement and 33% of school-related arrests (2021–22). The disparity starts early: Black preschoolers were 18% of preschool enrollment but 38% of preschool suspensions.^[3][4]

What that adds up to for Black students

81% vs. 90%

Nationally, 81% of Black public high school students graduate on time, compared with 90% of White students (class of 2021–22). Black students graduate at lower rates than White students in every state in the country, with gaps as large as 23 points.^[5] A gap that shows up at graduation doesn't begin at graduation — it compounds year over year, starting in elementary school.

Indiana: the gap lives here too

68.6% vs. 88.3%

On IREAD-3, Indiana's third-grade reading exam, 68.6% of Black students passed in 2024, versus 88.3% of White students and 82.5% statewide — a gap of nearly 20 points on the single skill that most predicts later academic success.^[6] Third grade is the hinge of a school career: it's when children stop learning to read and start reading to learn. It is also exactly where our tutors work.

Statewide on the 2024 ILEARN, only 41.0% of all Indiana students in grades 3–8 were proficient in English/language arts and 40.7% in math.^[7] The history behind these numbers is stark: state accountability data from 2016 showed Black students in Indiana were five times more likely than White students to attend a D- or F-rated school, and only 26.4% of Black students passed both sections of the state exam versus 57.8% of White students.^[8]

There is also proof that effort moves the needle: from 2023 to 2024, Black students in Indiana posted the largest English/language arts proficiency gain of any student group in the state (+1.2 points; +3.5 in ELA and +5.4 in math since 2021).^[7] Progress is possible. It is happening. It is just not finished.

Indianapolis: our own backyard

26%

In 2025, just 26% of Marion County students in grades 3–8 — district and charter schools combined — were proficient in English/language arts on ILEARN, versus 40.6% statewide. Statewide that same year, only 12.8% of Black students passed both the English and math sections, compared with 37.7% of White students.^[9]

There is real momentum: Indianapolis Public Schools' third-grade IREAD pass rate jumped about 10 points in 2025, from 59.8% to 69.8%.^[10] Celebrate that — and notice what it still means: roughly 3 in 10 IPS third graders cannot yet pass the state reading exam.

Why tutoring is the right answer

3–15 months

Tutoring is one of the most rigorously proven interventions in education. A meta-analysis of roughly 96 randomized controlled trials found tutoring programs increase learning by the equivalent of 3 to 15 additional months of school, with effects tending to be strongest in the earliest grades — and, for early grades, strongest in reading.^[11] Consistent, relationship-based, early-grade reading help is precisely the model Learn Like Me runs every week.

What we do about it

Learn Like Me can't fix funding formulas or redraw district lines. What we can do is deliver the intervention the evidence supports — consistent, relationship-based tutoring — at no cost, to Indianapolis elementary schools that couldn't otherwise afford it. Here's how the program works →