• Statewide
• Kansas City
• St. Louis

Inequities in Graduation Rates

Black and White male students in St. Louis in 2005/6 graduated at lower rates than the national average; White male students at approximately half the national average. The graduation rate for Black male students is less half the Benchmark.

The Benchmark for graduation rates of Black male students for school districts enrolling more than 10,000 male Black 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 St. Louis public schools was equivalent to ten percent of St. Louis's Black, non-Hispanic male student population and the percentage of out-of-school suspensions given to White male students in St. Louis was equivalent to three percent, in the 2004/5 school year, as reported to the Office of Civil Rights of the U. S. Department of Education. One hundred forty Black (and 20 White) male students were expelled from the St. Louis schools.

Black, non-Hispanic male students were classified as Gifted/Talented less than a quarter as often as White non-Hispanic male students in the St. Louis public schools and were placed in Mental Retardation classifications more than twice as often. If Black male students had been admitted to Gifted/Talent programs at the same rate as White male students, at least an additional 900 would have had that opportunity.

Proportionate to enrollment, approximately thirteen times as many White male students as Black male students in the St. Louis public schools in 2004/5 were allowed to participate in Mathematics Advanced Placement courses and five times as many in Science Advanced Placement courses.