Report: Despite Gains, Black Male Graduation Rate Still Lags.

Education Week (9/20, Maxwell) reports that according to a report from the Schott Foundation for Public Education, "the four-year graduation rate for black males has steadily improved over the last decade, but remains dismally low compared to the rate for their white male peers," noting that the report "found that in 2009-10, 52 percent of black males graduated from high school with a regular diploma within four years. It's the first time that more than half of the nation's African-American boys did so, according to Schott's report." The article suggests that the lingering achievement gap erodes the significance of the gains.

 

Reuters (9/20, Gamboa) also covers this story, quoting Schott Foundation President John H. Jackson saying, "At this rate it would take nearly 50 years for black males to graduate at the same rate as white males. 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."