• Statewide
• Nashville
• Memphis

Inequities in Graduation Rates

Black and White male students in Nashville graduated at significantly lower rates in 2005/6 than the national averages for their groups. [1] The graduation rate for Black male students is less than half the Benchmark.

The Benchmark for graduation rates of Black male students for school districts enrolling more than 10,000 Black male students is 82% (Fort Bend, Texas).

Discipline, Special Education, and Advanced Placement Inequities

The number of out-of-school suspensions given to Black male students in the Nashville public schools was equivalent to nineteen percent of Nashville’s Black, non-Hispanic male student population and the percentage of out-of-school suspensions given to White male students in Nashville was equivalent to eleven percent, in the 2004/5 school year, as reported to the Office of Civil Rights of the U. S. Department of Education. One hundred ninety-five Black male students and 95 White male students were expelled.

Black, non-Hispanic male students were classified as Gifted/Talented less than a fifth as often as White, non-Hispanic male students in the Nashville public schools and classified as Mentally Retarded more often than their White classmates. If Black male students had been admitted to Gifted/Talented programs at a rate comparable to that of White male students, at least an additional 500 students would have been able to take advantage of those program resources.

Proportionate to enrollment, more than four times as many White male students as Black male students in the Nashville public schools in 2004/5 were allowed to participate in Mathematics and three times as many in Science Advanced Placement courses.