Poor and minority students are more likely to be taught a low-level curriculum with low standards for performance. Poor and minority students are overrepresented in less challenging general and vocational education programs. Roughly 55 out of every 100 white and Asian-American students complete algebra II and geometry. Only 35 percent of African-American and Native American seniors take this math. Although one of every four white seniors takes physics, only one in six black seniors, and one in seven Latino seniors, completes this course.
Blacks complete high school at roughly the same rate as their white peers.
About 83 percent of black Americans have earned a high school diploma or its equivalent by age 24. But only 60 percent of Latino students nationally earn a diploma. Blacks are much less likely than whites to go to college. For every 100 white Americans, nearly 60 attend college and 25 earn a bachelor's degree. Only 40 percent of blacks attend college, and just 12 percent earn a bachelor's degree by age 30.