Nearly 78% of the black girls attending Pittsburgh Public Schools in the 2016-17 school year receive free or reduced lunch. The percentage is roughly the same for black boys. About 41% of white girls in the district get free or reduced lunch.
Black girls in Pittsburgh Public Schools are more than 3x as likely as white girls to be suspended from school.
Only 4% of black girls in Pittsburgh Public Schools for the 2016-17 school year are classified as “gifted.” By contrast, 18% of white girls are considered “gifted.” Black girls make up 11% of the district’s gifted students, though they account for 26% of the district’s total K-12 population.
Black teens accounted for 15% of black births in Allegheny County from 2010 to 2014, while white teens made up 3% of white births.
In 2014, black females ages 15 to 24 represented 28% of chlamydia cases in Allegheny County, but those girls and young women accounted for only 1.2% of the total county population.
Black girls in Allegheny County are 50% more likely than white girls to experience teen dating violence and more than 4x as likely to face threats of violence.
Rape is 2x as likely to happen to black girls in Allegheny County than white girls.
Black girls in Allegheny County are 9x as likely to have someone close to them murdered.
Allegheny County is home to an estimated 23,650 girls younger than 20 who identify as black or African American. About 10,700 of the girls live in the city of Pittsburgh.
In Pittsburgh, 55%of black girls — and 68% of black girls younger than 5 — live in poverty.
Black girls are referred to juvenile court at a rate of 11x that of white girls in Allegheny County.
Sources: Allegheny County Health Department; Healthy Allegheny Teen Survey, August 2015; Allegheny County Department of Human Services; Inequities affecting black girls in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, October 2016, U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 5-year estimates, 2010-2015; Pittsburgh Public Schools data for 2016-17 school year.