Graduation rate racial divide narrows a bit

AP

(AP) WASHINGTON — More than half the young black men who graduated high school in 2010 earned their diploma in four years, an improved graduation rate that still lagged behind that of their white counterparts, according to an education group's report released Wednesday.

The Schott Foundation for Public Education, which has tracked graduation rates of black males from public schools since 2004, said 52 percent of black males who entered ninth grade in the 2006-07 school year graduated in four years. That compared with 78 percent of white, non-Latino males and 58 percent of Latino males.

The foundation releases its report every two years. In 2008, the black male graduation rate was 47 percent.

The progress among blacks closed the racial divide on graduation rates by 3 percentage points over nine years to a 26 percentage-point gap.

"At this rate, it would take nearly 50 years for black males to graduate at the same rate as white males," said John H. Jackson, president and CEO of the foundation. "I don't think the country can wait. I don't think any parent or student can wait for half a century to have the same opportunities, education, jobs as their white male counterparts."

The foundation said improving the graduation rates of black and Latino students has become more urgent now that the majority of babies born in the U.S. are minorities.

"These outcomes are not evidence of flaws of young men, but evidence of willful neglect by federal, state, local elected policymakers and leaders," said Jackson, who is participating in this week's Congressional Black Caucus legislative conference, which includes education access on its agenda.

With the release of the report, his organization is calling for a moratorium on school suspensions, which have been shown to be used disproportionately on minority children and children with disabilities. The group also wants more support for students through individual plans that offer help such as tutoring, mental health and health care, tutoring and mentoring so they can catch up in school.

Such support can help children reach the bar that has been set by the standards-driven education approach the country has taken for the past decade, which emphasizes raising standards, assessment and teacher evaluations, Jackson said.

States use different methods to calculate high school graduation rates. The Schott Foundation said it is aware of the differences and calculates graduation rates as the number of students receiving diplomas divided by the number of students in ninth grade four years earlier. It counts only diplomas accepted by post-secondary institutions, not GEDs or local diplomas, offered in some districts for students who are not college-bound.

[ChicagoDanceMom]

These groups are too broad to be relevant. Like CHobbes, I would like to see groups of black and white males separated by income. What numbers are used to calculate the dropout rate? Number of graduates divided by number of freshmen? So if a high school counts the number of black male freshmen and some of them die (urban violence), move away or join the military, it could appear to artifically inflate the dropout rate. That said, as the mother of a black male who is a college student (and by the way, most of his black male friends are also and all of them completed high school), these numbers are alarming and unacceptable. For those who are so quick to blame the victim, you have to wonder why the high dropout rate is limited to underperforming urban districts while black males tend to succeed in stronger school districts.

[CHobbes]

I would like to see studies comparing poor whites and poor African Americans instead of dumping everyone into the white and black buckets.

[splish3100]

As long as unaffordable free handouts for food, housing, income, telephones are given to those that have no need for family and personal responsibility to be in place before having loads of children, the social catastrophe of children having children and fatherless households without a role model will continue to be the dominating family structure of an overwhelming majority of our the high school drop outs.
The attempts by government to "help" the poor do nothing but create dependency, a lack of personal responsibility, directionless children, crime, unskilled laborers that few want to hire, and a ongoing tragedy for an extraordinary percentage of Americans.
We've tried this plan for the past 50 years hoping for a different result. Well, the results are in are pretty conclusive.

[jjay111]

Interesting how a lack of ambition, interest and performance is the fault of "the system" rather than each individual student. Must be we're faced with some vast national conspiracy to hold back minority students.The real problem couldn't be that we're speaking about the same kids who are modeling themselves on thugs and who are breeding like rabbits at taxpayer expense. Guess if you can't do one thing well, there's always something else. When will the apologists shut up and face facts? The truth doesn't go away just because we don't like it.

[djseavy]

They are victims of themselves. I'm sick of hearing about the lack of opportunities afforded non-whites. Truth is, everyone has the same opportunities, some just don't wish to take advantage of those. We hear about poverty, but guess what - the entire country, with a few exceptions, is stuck in poverty right now. Perhaps the racial gap would close much faster if some kids would stay out of gangs, jail, drugs, etc. Everyone has the free will to make choices, and if you're not going to take advantage of the opportunities out there, then don't come crying to anybody. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Many white kids are homeless, etc., yet the vast majority seem to make it to school and graduate. Those white kids that don't are choosing not to, same as any other race.

[rainbowroosie]

They are victims of the system...