Tracking the Educational Progress of 21st-Century African American Students

department_of_educationA new report from the U.S. Department of Education tracks the educational progress of students who were sophomores in high school in the year 2002 through the year 2012. The data shows that 19.8 percent of the African American high school sophomore in 2002 had gone on to earn at least a bachelor’s degree over the next decade. This is less than half the rate for Whites. Nearly 40 percent of White high school sophomores in 2002 had earned a bachelor’s degree by 2012.

The results showed that another 7.5 percent of Black sophomores in 2002 had earned an associate’s degree, but no higher degree, as had 9.1 percent of White high school sophomores in 2002.

Nearly 5 percent of Black high school sophomores in 2002 never completed high school compared to 1.8 percent of Whites.

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  1. The reasons for the relative underperformance of blacks vs. whites. vs. Asian-Americans are many. President Obama, who would never condescend to send his children to the D.C. (or before that Chicago) public schools, continues to sacrifice the education of poor black Americans so that he can maintain the support of the powerful, competition-suppressing teachers’ unions. A child raised by two parents, both of who graduated from high school and college is more likely to graduate from both high school and college. Should that surprise anyone. Our parents are our most important teachers. Rather than instinctively conclude unequal results are irrefutable evidence of an irrationally discriminatory process, if–IF–our sincere goal is to reduce the severity and frequency of those unequal outcomes, we should be receptive to examining all the contributing factors. Fail to do so and we will continue to get the undesirable results. Eric Holder recently reinforced that Americans are cowards when it comes to discussing race. I am very willing to be called names because that cost is worth the benefit of the benefits of pursuing truth.

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