A new report issued by the U.S. Department of Education shows a wide racial gap in public high school graduation rates. The data shows that 86 percent of White students graduated from public high schools compared to 69 percent of Black students.
The report also provided data on high school graduation rates by race in each state. The highest high school graduation rate for Blacks was in the state of Texas, where 84 percent of African American students earned their high school diploma. The lowest rate was in Nevada where only 48 percent of African American students graduated from high school.
Nationwide there was a 17 percentage point gap in graduation rates between Blacks and Whites. But the gap was considerably larger in some states. The largest gap was in Minnesota where 84 percent of White students but only 51 percent of Black students graduated from high school. Large racial gaps also occurred in the District of Columbia, Wisconsin, Ohio, New York, and Nevada.
The smallest racial gap was in Hawaii. There 76 percent of Blacks and 79 percent of Whites graduated from high school.
The full report, Public High School Four-Year On-Time Graduation Rates and Event Dropout Rates: School Years 2010–11 and 2011–12, may be downloaded by clicking here.
