New Report: Social and Educational Factors

Posted by on November 15, 2010

‘A national catastrophe’

A new study from the Council of the Great City Schools attempts to pull together much of the disparate research on African-American male achievement. Black males continue to perform lower than their peers on almost every indicator, and to date there has been no concerted national focus on the education and social outcomes of black males specifically. As the authors point out, there is no specified office within the U.S. Department of Education; no primary federal source to collect and maintain data on African-American males; no legislative projects within local, state, or national budgets; no national policy that would drive resources or attention to the issue; and no federal education program on the educational status of black males. The report examines six areas regarding black males: readiness to learn; achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP); achievement on the NAEP in selected urban school districts; college and career preparedness; school experience; and postsecondary experience. The report cites disturbing statistics, such as that black boys drop out of high school at approximately twice the rate of white boys, their SAT scores are on average 104 points lower, and they represented five percent of college students in 2008. On the NAEP in 2009, black boys lagged behind Latinos of both genders, and fell behind white boys by at least 30 points, a gap equal to three academic grades.

See the report: http://www.cgcs.org/publications/achievement.aspx