The Drop Out Rate for Black Students in California: A Crisis

Hardy Brown, Inglewood Today

Last week the Department of Education released their new definition of a “Drop Out” and the tracking system that will have cost us taxpayers over $33 million dollars when complete. The new system requires each student to be assigned a special number that follows them throughout their school life. This is necessary in order to know when a student is not showing up in any of our schools.? How­ever, that’s not what really got my attention.

Instead, I was struck by the emphasis the report placed on the statewide average of 24.2% of our students dropping out of school.? Believe me, it is bad to hear that 3 out of every 10 students will not complete high school, especially in our society today. But then I looked much closer and saw that African American students are? dropping out at a 41.6% rate as compared to 15.2% of White students throughout the state of California. We more than double their drop out rate and nobody knows why the kids are leaving.