Most Black Teenage Boys Fail to Graduate in Georgia

Only 47 percent of African-American male students graduated from high school during the 2007-08 schoolyear, according to a report from the Schott Foundation for Public Education. The report is called  Yes We Can: The 2010 Schott 50 State Report on Black Males in Public Education .  It ranks all 50 states by black male graduation rates. Georgia is 10th from the bottom with a graduation rate of 43% for black teenage boys. In contrast, the graduation rate for white teenage boys is 62%.

Atlanta Grad Rate Investigation

Atlanta Public Schools claim a 30 percent increase in high school graduation rates since 2002, but the boost in numbers may be the result of hidden truancy rates, according to an Atlanta Journal Constitution investigation. The story says:
The mass exodus from Atlanta’s high schools may be the primary reason for one of the district’s proudest academic achievements: a dramatic increase in its graduation rate… District officials boast that the rate of students getting diplomas within four years has risen 30 percentage points since 2002. But the rate’s only surge, from 43 percent to 72 percent, came between 2003 and 2005, the Journal-Constitution’s analysis of state data found. During that time, the district removed from its rolls about 30 percent of all pupils in grades nine through 12 — roughly 16,000 students. As a result, most of those students no longer figured into the district’s calculation of what Superintendent Beverly Hall has descried as the “all-important” graduation rate: The fewer students being counted, the fewer graduates needed to make the rate higher.  A student listed as a dropout would count against the rate.  A transfer would not – even if school officials didn’t know, or didn’t try to find out, where a student went.