Less than half of black males earn high school diplomas

LYNN – President Barack Obama’s educational cry of Yes We Can is fast turning into No We Can’t for black males across America who are failing to graduate from high school.According to a Schott Foundation for Public Education report released last this week on public schools, the 2007-2008 graduation rate among black males in the U.S. was only 47 percent.The report offers state-by-state data that suggests the overwhelming majority of U.S. School districts are failing to provide the resources black males need to close the so-called national racial graduation gap.Even fewer black males graduate with honors. For example, New York state’s graduation rate for its Regents diploma is only 25 percent for black male students, slightly below the 28 percent rate for New York City, which has the nation’s highest enrollment of black students.Overall, each year more than 100,000 black male students in New York City alone do not graduate from high school as part of the class in which they started school.In Massachusetts, black males showed a 52 percent graduation rate for 2007-2008. More than seven times as many black male students as white male students were classified as mentally retarded in Massachusetts.Further, the number of out-of-school suspensions given to black male students in Massachusetts was equivalent to 12 percent of all enrolled black male high school students statewide.By comparison, of all white male students enrolled in high schools in Massachusetts, only 6 percent were given out-of-school suspensions.Four times as many white male students took Advanced Placement mathematics tests their black counterparts.The fourth biennial Schott report concludes that without targeted investments to provide the core, research-proven resources to help black male students succeed in public education, they are being set up to fail. It also highlights New Jersey’s Abbott plan, which demonstrates that when equitable resources are available to all students, systemic change at the state level can yield significant results. New Jersey is now the only state with a significant black population with a greater than 65 percent high school graduation rate for black male students.”Currently, the rate at which black males are being pushed out of school and into the pipeline to prison far exceeds the rate at which they are graduating and reaching high levels of academic achievement,” said Dr. John H. Jackson, president and chief executive officer of the Schott Foundation. “It is not enough to focus on saving the few. We must focus on systemic change to provide all our children the opportunity to learn.”Career educator Ronald E. Walker of Lynn agreed. “Jackson is absolutely right. As someone who lives in Lynn, whose kids went to the Lynn public schools, I am concerned about closing the achievement gap,” he said. “It requires that we pay attention to all kids, and especially to the academic, social and emotional development of black and Latino boys.”Walker, executive director of The Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color, said everywhere he travels to deliver the message, he asks about the local dropout rate, percentage of boys on suspension, and how many go on to college.”There is an over-representation of black and Latino boys in special education. I can tell you who is in the alternative schools and special programs ? it’s the black and Latino boys,” he said.A question being heard more frequently asks whether teachers should be more culturally competent. “My answer is yes,” Walker said. “Lots of these young men come from backgrounds and cultures that their teachers aren’t familiar with. Some of them live with alcoholic parents, or in a house where abuse takes place. Maybe their neighborhoods are not intact, or they don’t have two parents raising them. I want young men to value education, so part of my success has to come from knowing about their background. Good teachers have always done it. They listen. They watch. They can tell if a child is comin