Key Findings African American, Latino, and Native American students are suspended or expelled in numbers vastly disproportionate to those of their white peers. This was true in every school district surveyed. Furthermore, zero tolerance policies exacerbate this trend. Students of color are much more likely to drop out or be pushed out of school and less likely to graduate than white students. For example, in San Francisco, both Latino and African American students represented a percentage of drop-outs in excess of their percentage of the population.
Students of color have less access to advanced classes and gifted programs.
The report shows that in all twelve school districts studied, students of color did not have fair access to Advanced Placement and gifted classes, which are essential to admission to many colleges. The racial make up of a teaching corps rarely matches that of the student body. None of the twelve school districts had teaching staffs as diverse as their student population. A key recommendation from the report is that all school districts should be required to keep and annually publish key statistics, disaggregated by age, sex, and race. In effect, each school district should issue an annual Racial Equity Report.