• Statewide
• Birmingham City Public Schools
• Mobile County
• Montgomery County

Inequities in Graduation Rates

Black male students in Mobile County’s public schools graduate at a rate slightly higher than the national average, while the district’s White male students graduate at significantly lower rates. There is currently a 67% gap between the groups, which appears to be closing as graduation rates for Black male students improve more quickly than those for White male students.

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 Mobile was equivalent to a remarkable thirty-five percent of Mobile’s Black, non-Hispanic male student population. The number of out-of-school suspensions given to the approximately equal number of White male students in Mobile was equivalent to twenty-one percent of the district’s White, non-Hispanic male enrollment in the 2004/5 school year, as reported to the Office of Civil Rights of the U. S. Department of Education.

Less than a third the proportion of Mobile’s Black male students were admitted to district Gifted and/or Talented programs than were White male students, while over twice as many were classified as Mentally Retarded, in proportion to enrollments. If Black male students had been admitted to Gifted and/or Talented programs at the same rate as White male students, at least 600 more would be in those programs.

There were nearly 17,000 Black male students in the Mobile County public schools in 2004/5, of whom about one-fifth of one percent were in Mathematics and Science Advanced Placement courses. The Advanced Placement rate for the 15,000 White male students in the district was 150 percent higher than for Black male students.