Phillip Jackson of the Chicago-based Black Star Project was not surprised at the numbers. Black boys are in school, but a failing educational system that does not adequately prepare them with skills and high dropout rates have resulted in violence and Black communities becoming “economic wastelands,” he pointed out.
The national high school graduation rate for Black male students was 52 percent compared to 78 percent for White, non-Latino males in 2009-2010, according to the The Urgency of Now: The 2012 Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males. In Illinois, the number was 47 percent for Black males. Young, Black men were suspended or expelled from school at a disproportionately higher rate than their White counterparts, often for similar infractions or minor disciplinary issues. Suspended students are more likely to drop out or come into contact with the juvenile justice system. Suspensions then become the gateway to the “school to prison pipeline”.
On Jan. 8, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan rolled out the Obama administration’s recommendations for new “nondiscriminatory” school discipline policies. What immediate or long term impact means for Black male students’ is not known.
Right now, choices for young, Black men are limited said Mr. Jackson, whose organization provides educational and training programs for Black youth, including academic tutoring. There is nothing new or startling about the 92 percent unemployment rate of Chicago’s Black male teens he added.