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.
Finally rest? It’ll take a lifetime to clean up the mess.
Fake statistic. These students STILL can read or write any better than before. The “diploma” is just more social promotion.
I hate that site. It’s nothing but black, black, black all the time. Why don’t they just slap a “white privilege” penalty on the numbers for whites and be done with it. There, all equal now.
And when you don’t stop and frisk, the arrest rate goes down, to. Now that’s progress. Liberal style.
Closing Arguments Begin in Atlanta Test Cheating Trial
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/16/us/ap-us-atlanta-schools-cheating.html?_r=0
What's happened is that a lot less attention is spent on those average students, the ones who get Bs and Cs with no extra services. They get by. What you get might be that those students are less qualified for work or college, while more students meet minimum requirements. At the same time, the very top-tier (top 10% or so) is excellently qualified, perhaps with higher standards than in the past..
Is equalization and inclusion while bringing down the average good or bad? It's an open debate.
"So I become a miner instead.
They're not very rigorous the mining exams.
They only ask you one question. They ask:
"Who are you?"
I got 75% on that one."
That's because their parents got jobs, got married and had children, while the present generation has children, never gets married, and won't hold a job that interferes with the party life.
If it makes the authors feel any better, this is happening to the white population, too. Solidly middle-class people in their 60s and 70s have grandchildren or great-grandchildren born outside marriage, which means those children and their parents are headed down the socioeconomic ladder.
Yep, public school is a baby sitting service so the parents can sit at home and smoke pot and drink beer until the little minds filled with mush get home.
Hobbies, like work, are frowned upon.
My first thought is that a large portion of the increased number of graduations is because of the way that teachers are instructed to keep grades at or just above failing for the students. My two daughters have both been teaching 8th graders in two separate districts and were both told to change grades from failing to minimally passing - by the administrators of the schools.
Closing arguments started Monday in the trial of a dozen former Atlanta Public Schools educators accused of participating in a test cheating conspiracy that drew nationwide attention.
This is how they do it!
Ah, but can Johnny actually read?
Is there any connection to the Atlanta cheating scandal?
And it's going to take more than years period.
Pretty funny-
Reminds me of:
“Jun 28, 2013 - OOPS! Rachel Jeantel yesterday testifies she can’t read a cursive letter she supposedly wrote. It’s signed with her printed nickname. OOPS!””
AND this was the states STAR witness-
I am sure she is working for SEIU now
LOL
Can’t have that happening - they may begin to think and act like regular citizens. Let’s see what the Left does to “correct” this anomaly.
Exactly. I have a cousin whose daughter graduated from high school a couple of years ago. She kept telling me.. you need to read my book.. that she was writing on some notepad like website. So I did. It was painful. She could neither write nor spell. She couldn’t even have a continuing thought. It was pitiful. They had just given this gal a diploma.
Why, all we need now is another 40+yrs, a few more $Trillion, and the field will be level....Right?
Uh huh.
Tell me another one daddy! Oooppps, I probably shouldn’t say daddy.
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