Posted on 03/17/2015 11:29:10 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
The high school graduation rate for Black students jumped nearly 4 percent between 2011 and 2013, narrowing the gap between Black students and white students and helping contribute to the highest high school graduation rate for American students and for Black students in the country’s history.
The good news about the educational achievements of Black students was celebrated in data released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Education, which also highlighted the jump in the graduation rates for Hispanic and American Indian students.
The department also said there are an additional 1.1 million Black and Hispanic students attending college since 2008.
In the midst of a startling array of data demonstrating that the Black community has been sliding backwards in its economic status, this news portends good tidings for the future financial state of the Black family. If hundreds of thousands of additional Black children are attending college, there is a good possibility the economic backsliding could be halted.
A devastating study by researchers for the Brookings Institution released last October showed that based on recent trends a majority of Black children born into middle-class families will drop down into a poorer income bracket as adults. The study, conducted for the Boston Federal Reserve by researchers Richard V. Reeves and Isabel V. Sawhill, also confirmed that your chances of escaping childhood poverty and moving into a higher income bracket are dramatically higher if you were born white than if you were born Black.
While about 16 percent of white children born into the poorest one-fifth of U.S. families will rise to become a member of the top one-fifth by the time they turn 40 years old, just 3 percent of Black children will make it to the top, the researchers found.
“Half the black children born into the bottom quintile remain there in adulthood, compared to just one in four whites,” they wrote. “Only 3 percent join the top income quintile, implying that a real-life ‘rags to riches’ story is unlikely for black children.”
And even more alarmingly, of Black children born to parents in the middle income group, only 14 percent will move up into higher income brackets as adults, while 37 percent will remain in the middle class and an almost unbelievable 69 percent will move downward and be poorer than their parents.
It is this income prediction that the Black students currently graduating from high school will be trying to prove wrong.
For Black students, the graduation rate rose from 67 percent in the 2010-2011 school year to 70.7 percent in the 2012-2013 school year, a jump of 3.7 percent.
That compares to an increase for white students from 84 percent in 2010-2011 to 86.6 percent in 2012-13.
The gap between Black students and white students closed to 15.9 percent in 2012-2013 from a gap of 17 percent in 2010-2011.
The rate for Hispanic students rose from 71 percent in 2010-2011 to 75.2 percent in 2012-2013, an increase of 4.2 percent. The gap between Hispanics and whites closed from 13 percent in 2010-2011 to 11.4 percent in 2012-2013.
The overall graduation rate of 81.4 percent is the highest ever recorded in the U.S.
Although the Education Department didn’t try to offer the specific initiatives leading to these increases, President Obama used the historic increase in the graduation rate during a meeting yesterday with leadership from the Council of the Great City Schools as evidence that his administration’s programs are working, according to published reports.
“The hard work of America’s educators, families, communities and students is paying off. This is a vital step toward readiness for success in college and careers for every student in this country,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a statement. “While these gains are promising, we know that we have a long way to go in improving educational opportunities for every student – no matter their zip code —for the sake of our young people and our nation’s economic strength.”
The department said it has invested more than $1 billion to help prepare students for the critical skills they will need to graduate high school and be prepared for college and successful careers. Among the initiatives the department mentioned are early education, expanded college access and affordability for families, and grant programs such as Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation, and School Improvement Grants.
Anybody can see that this means nothing. “Nothing, nothing, nothing at all” in the words of the poet. ( Try googling that ! )
I wonder how much number tweeking this took. Worse, I think white students are generally dumber than ever, and so are the teachers. I went to vote last year and my wife and I casually observed spelling mistakes on several posters throughout the school/polling place.
The posters were made by the teachers, not the students!
I assume the standards have been lowered - again.
I’m not so sure that’s believable...but then the standards have dropped so low now...and the Common Core teaching on a roll....who can tell.
It’s going to take more than the years they’re saying for that gap to close....meanwhile the blacks have the Hispanic and Latino’s closing in as well.
This is in a Georgia newspaper ,, they’re the poster child for cheating in school (by the teachers).
Wait, What?
That can’t be right.
I thought they absolutely required Affirmative Action to get ahead?
So, this story says they’re just as smart as the next guy?
Always thought so and it took em long enough to admit:
.
“You can get ahead in life based on merit”...
Appears there was a general increase of about 4% in the graduation rate across all racial groups. I wonder what people who look at this stuff realistically attribute this to.
Did they learn anything?
Diplomas mean nothing anymore.
Read H.G.Wells
The Time Machine
Can’t be teaching or education from what I’ve seen. It is just about keeping the kids in the school and pushing them up a notch each year until they are out.
If true, then good news. I’ve always thought it was a national security risk for an entire class of people to be so extremely ignorant, and actually improving basic education for the black underclass is a more substantial solution than affirmative action, in my view. On the other hand, I think all of society is getting dumber and the educational system weaker across the board, so maybe its just standards are being lowered and/or whites are getting dumber.
Funny how these liberals never mention Asians in these articles regarding minority test scores and education. Maybe because it will screw up the narrative that America is an “evil and racist” nation where people of color have no chance to succeed.
Bingo, winner here.
They either lower the standards or we end up with 6th graders that have to shave every morning.
That’s what I’m suspecting. I’m wary of this of this figure sort of like the employment numbers.
If they just hand out diplomas to the blacks, then there will be a 100% graduation rate. The liberals than then declare “mission accomplished!”
Well cool! Now everything is even. We can do away with quotas and ‘affirmative action’.
This must mean affirmative action will be eliminated, right?
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