WASHINGTON, D.C.
African-Americans and Hispanics have a four-year college graduation rate of 21 percent, according to a new report released Wednesday by The Education Trust. By comparison, the four-year college graduation rate for Asians is 41 percent and 38 percent for Whites.
According to The Education Watch State Summary Reports, poorly funded public schools continue to produce students — many of whom are minority and low-income — without the skills needed to participate in the knowledge economy.
“While manufacturing and agriculture once gave America an edge, education will determine who leads the 21st century,” says Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust. “America is facing unprecedented pressure to compete in a global economy, and we simply cannot afford to under-educate so many of our young people.”
While college attainment levels differed from state to state, attainment levels for specific demographic groups raised questions of equity, according to the report.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress tables accompanying the reports compare which states do a better job at teaching minority students. Some of the largest achievement gaps between African-American and White students were in the nation’s capital. The District of Columbia had a 250-point gap in fourth-grade reading levels between Blacks and Whites; and a more than 310-point gap in eighth-grade math.
The gap in math achievement separating Hispanic from White eighth-graders in Minnesota is 10 points larger than the gap in Virginia, a state educating a similar proportion of Latino students.
“If race and poverty mattered more than what happens in schools, then NAEP scores for low-income students and students of color would be more consistent from state to state,” says Daria Hall, senior policy analyst for the Education Trust.
For a high-poverty school district, there is a funding gap of $1.3 million for a high school with 1,500 students, and states like New York, Illinois and Wyoming have some of the largest. The report also says the single biggest predictor of college success is completion of a rigorous high school curriculum but minority students are less likely to complete these courses. But poor teacher quality in under-funded schools also contributes to the achievement gap.
