The Baltimore schools’ drop-out rate for Black students was nearly 30 percent for the class of 2013, according to the 2014 Maryland Report Card. Half of those graduating go to college. Just half of those who go to college are still there after the first year.
Compared with residents of Maryland as a whole, twice as many of Baltimore’s Black residents over the age of 25 have not graduated from high school. Half as many have graduated from college. Eleven percent of Black men in Baltimore have graduated from college, compared with 48 percent of White men, according to the U.S. Census’ 2013 American Community Survey.
You might think that poor Blacks — especially poor Black males — in Baltimore read these statistics and get angry. You might expect poor Black males in Baltimore to be incredulous to read comments that recent events in their city are “not about race.”
But when 93 percent of poor Black males in the eighth grade cannot read well enough to read a newspaper or this article, what do we expect them to learn? What do we expect them to know about their place in post-racial America?
Here is what they do understand: The intersection of the criminal justice and education systems works very well to police the boundaries of caste in this country. Just look at Ferguson, Missouri, or Chicago, or New York City or Milwaukee. Or Baltimore.
Eric J. Cooper is the founder and president of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education, a nonprofit professional development organization that provides student-focused professional development, advocacy and organizational guidance to accelerate student achievement. He can be reached at e_cooper@nuatc.org. He tweets as @ECooper4556.
Michael Holzman is a research and author. He has served as consultant to numerous foundations and is the author of the Schott Foundation’s series “Public Education and Black Male Students: A State Report Card.” His latest book is The Chains of Black America.
Article Appeared @http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-cooper/its-all-about-race_b_7269260.html