• Statewide
• Los Angeles Unified School District
• Oakland Unified School District
• San Diego Unified School District

Inequities in Graduation Rates

Black male students in California graduated at higher rates in 2005/6 than the national average, as they had in 2004/5, while White male students graduated at approximately the same rate as the national average. Therefore, the racial gap is narrower in California than the national average. On the other hand, the three school districts in the state which enroll approximately 10,000 Black male students or more have lower graduation rates for those students than the state average, varying narrowly from 43% in Oakland and San Diego to 41% for the Los Angeles Unified School District. (Oakland has shown remarkable improvement in the past few years.)

The Benchmark for graduation rates of Black male students for states enrolling more than 10,000 Black male students is 74% (New Jersey).

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Evidence of Inequities

NAEP Grade 4 Reading results for California are below those for the nation as a whole for both Black and White, non-Hispanic male students.

Percentages Of White and Black Non-Hispanic Male Students At Each Achievement Level, Reading, Grade 4, 2007

At Grade 8 twice the proportion of the state's Black male students read at less than the Basic level than is the case for the state's White male students, and virtually none read at the Advanced level.

Percentages Of White and Black Non-Hispanic Male Students At Each Achievement Level, Reading, Grade 8, 2007

More than three times the share of California's Black male students score below the Basic level in Grade 4 Mathematics as the state's White, non-Hispanic male students.

Percentages Of White and Black Non-Hispanic Male Students At Each Achievement Level, Mathematics, Grade 4, 2007

By Grade 8, nearly two-third's of California's Black male students score below the Basic level in Grade 8 Mathematics and only one percent reach the Advanced level.

Percentages Of White and Black Non-Hispanic Male Students At Each Achievement Level, Mathematics, Grade 8, 2007

The Benchmark for Black male students in Grade 8 Reading is Massachusetts, with 62% of Black male students scoring at or above Basic.

The Benchmark for Grade 8 Mathematics is Texas, with 63% of Black male students scoring at or above Basic.

Discipline, Special Education, and Advanced Placement Inequities

A number equivalent to twenty-two percent of California's Black non-Hispanic male students received out of school suspensions and nine percent of the state's White, non-Hispanic male students received out of school suspensions in the 2004/5 school year, as reported to the Office of Civil Rights of the U. S. Department of Education. Twice the proportion of Black male students were expelled as White male students.

Approximately one-third the percentage of Black male students were admitted to district Gifted and/or Talented programs as White male students, while nearly twice as many were classified as Mentally Retarded. If Black male children had been admitted to California's Gifted and/or Talented programs at the same rate as White male children, at least 20,000 more would have been in those programs.

In proportion to their respective shares in the student population, more than four times as many White male students were allowed to take Advanced Placement Mathematics classes and nearly four times as many were allowed to take Advanced Placement Science classes as Black male students,