were zoned to West University Elementary School, one of Pershing's feeder schools, were enrolled in Pin Oak Middle School or Lanier Middle School. In 2010 two parents, Adrienne Vanderbloemen and Christi Young, started a blog that supported the idea of sending one's child to Pershing Middle School. Academics It is a fine arts magnet school, which specializes in music. The school clusters students into groups of 150. Each grade level has a number of clusters of students. One team of teachers is assigned to each cluster and this group of teachers is asked to know the students and their families. The racial demographics of each cluster are engineered to match that of the entire school. William G. Ouchi, author of Making Schools Work: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Your Children the Education They Need, wrote that this "achieves an intimate scale" for the students. In 2008, 93% of students passed state tests, with 84% of black students passing and 79% of Hispanic students passing. Seven years earlier, 67% of students passed state tests, with 47% of black students passing and 37% of Hispanic students passing. As of 2010, teacher Charles Coursey requires students to do gardening before their instructional time and during afternoons. During class he allows students to eat portions of the vegetables that were harvested in the garden. On Saturdays the organizers sell the rest of the produce at the Rice University farmers' market. The proceeds go to purchasing supplies for the gardening program. Athletics Teams are known as the 'Pandas'. Sports teams include football, baseball, basketball, track and field, swimming, soccer, cross country, and lacrosse for boys and volleyball, cross country, swimming, basketball, track and field, lacrosse and softball for girls. Student body As of the 2013-14 school year Pershing educated 1,656 students, making it HISD's second largest middle school. During the 2011-12 school year, Pershing served 1,748 students. 40% were African American 35% were Hispanic American 16% were White American 7% were Asian American 1% were two or more races Less than 1% were Native American Approximately 26% of the students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. In 2008 William G. Ouchi, author of Making Schools Work: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Your Children the Education They Need, described Pershing as a racially and socioeconomically diverse school. That year, Pershing had a large number of immigrant students. As of 2008, of the 1,903 students at the