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May 17, 2005
Every year, across the country, a
dangerously high percentage of students—disproportionately
poor and minority—disappear from the educational pipeline
before graduating from high school. According to a study released
by The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University (CRP) and the
Urban Institute in 2004, only about 68% of all students nationally
who enter 9th grade will graduate “on time” with regular
diplomas in 12th grade. While the graduation rate for White students
is 75%, only approximately half of Black, Latino, and Native American
students earn regular diplomas alongside their classmates. Graduation
rates are even lower for minority males. Yet, because of misleading
and inaccurate reporting of dropout and graduation rates, and an
exclusive preoccupation with testing data, the public remains largely
unaware of this educational and civil rights crisis.
This crisis is particularly acute in Southern states, which have
some of the lowest overall graduation rates in the country. The
South is a critical region to examine because it has a very large
and rapidly growing population and has always been home to a majority
of African Americans. In addition, several southern states are now
in the epicenter of a huge Latino migration. The region also has
a history of racial inequality including unlawful school segregation.
As pointed out in this report, two independent studies show a high
correlation between racially and socio-economically segregated schools
and very low graduation rates. Not surprisingly, the research shows
that poor, racially isolated Whites have low graduation rates that
are nearly identical to poor, racially isolated Blacks. Nationally,
few predominantly White schools have concentrated poverty, but there
are significant numbers of these in parts of the rural South.
According to new estimates compiled by Christopher Swanson of the
Urban Institute, the Southern region (defined here as sixteen states
and the District of Columbia that practiced legally imposed segregation
prior to Brown v. Board of Education: West Virginia, D.C., Delaware,
Maryland, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi,
Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee,
Oklahoma, Virginia) graduated only 64.5% of its students in 2002,
or several points lower than the national average. Minority students
fared far worse. Only 55.3% of Blacks and 56.3% of Latinos graduated
on time with their peers, as compared with 70.5% of whites, and
82.2% of Asians.
In this report, we give special attention to five southern states
-- Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina.
These states report graduation rates in 2002 ranging from a high
of 85% in North Carolina to a low of 61.8% in Georgia. When a more
accurate measurement, the Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI) was used,
the graduation rates for these five states dipped far lower than
these official estimates. In keeping with the national trend, graduation
rates for Black and Latino students in these five states are substantially
lower still. In Georgia, which has a substantial and growing Latino
population, the rates for Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans were
all below 50%.
Black, Native American and Latino
males fared worst of all. Across the Southern region, the graduation
rate for Black males averages only 47.4%, and 50.9% for Latinos.
In only one of the five special focus states—Louisiana—did
more than half (51.1%) of Black males graduate on time. In Florida,
Black males had the lowest graduation rate out of the five states,
a mere 38.3%. Of the two states where data on Native Americans males
is available, North Carolina had a graduation rate of just 31.7%.
The severity of this situation is further underscored by the dearth
of schools in many of these states which “beat the odds”
by graduating a higher than expected percentage of their students.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University searched for schools in
each of the five states that met the following criteria:
- at least 40% of students qualify for free lunch;
- where 25% or more of students are Black or Latino;
- and where promoting power, defined as a school’s
success in moving students from grade to grade, averaged over three
years (2000--2002), was at least 80%.
In Georgia, they could not identify a single school that met the
criteria. In Florida, they found only two such schools, four in
North Carolina, 12 in Louisiana, and 15 in Mississippi. The problems
that these schools face are likely to become more severe, because
Blacks in all Southern states have faced increasing segregation
since 1990 and 9/10 of highly segregated Black or Latino schools
experience concentrated poverty.
Unfortunately, neither the states, nor the U.S. Department of Education
is doing much to hold schools and districts accountable for such
high rates of school failure. Although Congress inserted graduation
rate accountability provisions into the No Child Left Behind law,
the lax enforcement on this accountability indicator at both the
state and federal level has rendered this requirement virtually
useless. While states must meet stringent requirements to improve
test scores or risk serious sanctions under this federal law, they
face few consequences for failing to improve graduation rates. For
example, in North Carolina all students (including all subgroups)
must improve test scores, step by step, until they reach 100% proficiency
in reading and math by 2014. If any subgroup misses one step, the
school fails to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and faces eventual
sanctions such as district takeover. In contrast, while the state
has set a goal of graduating 90% of its students, only the most
minimal improvement is required, and subgroups are never required
to show improvement to meet AYP. Specifically, districts that fail
to meet the 90% goal will still make AYP if they achieve as little
as 1/10 of 1% progress over the prior year. At that rate, Charlotte,
starting at a graduation rate of 57.1 %, has 329 years to meet the
90% graduation rate goal, yet only nine more years to meet the testing
goals!
Dropping out is related to failure in the job market and to criminal
activity. The low graduation rates and lax accountability are particularly
distressing when viewed alongside the high incarceration rates in
this region, particularly among Blacks and Latinos. In every one
of these states, incarceration spending increased between 1980 and
2000, from 60% in North Carolina to 201% in Mississippi. Failure
to graduate from high school triples the likelihood of being imprisoned.
According to researcher Russell Rumberger, the 114,382 students
who were officially reported as dropouts from each of the five states
highlighted in the 2002-03 year will cost the state $29.7 billion
in lost wages. Rumberger also calculated the increased incarceration
cost for the state of Georgia at $105 million.
As alarming as they are, these figures only begin
to convey the magnitude of the human, economic and social cost to
the region of tolerating these low graduation rates. When high numbers
of youth leave school ill-prepared to contribute to our labor force
and to civic life, our economy and our democracy suffer. Life opportunities
for these youth and for their children are dramatically curtailed.
Dropouts are much less likely to marry and to form stable families,
and their children are very likely to drop out as well. A renewed
commitment to keeping more students in school until they graduate
from high school is not just sound educational policy; it is sound
economic, public safety and criminal justice policy. Increasing
on-time graduation rates offers a win/win strategy that will not
only improve the region’s economic vitality, but will predictably
reduce crime, lower incarceration costs, and salvage lives in the
process. While there are many causes for dropping out, and substantial
research on policy and programs that can increase graduation rates,
there have been very few significant state or federal initiatives
to seriously implement these programs.
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To view the FULL REPORT click below:
Confronting
the Graduation Rate Crisis in the South
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