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. Only one in 10 Latinos earns a degree by that age. The Education Trust argues that the lack of explicit standards for American education contributes to such disparities. In the absence of national academic standards, there is wide variation in what schools and districts expect young people to learn.