D.C. Thinks State Control Over Education Is A Given. Here's Why That's Wrong

Last week, the Department of Education announced that the American high school graduation rate hit a new record high of 81 percent in 2012-2013. But the Schott Foundation simultaneously released a report showing that only 59 percent of African-American males graduated from high school that year. African-Americans in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina all graduated African-American males at rates lagging that deplorably low national average. There’s more. American schools remain highly segregated by race and class. School funding remains inequitable and tilted towards wealthy students in many states across the country.Minority students are more likely to be assigned inexperienced teachers, and less likely to attend schools offering a robust slate of honors and AP courses. This two-tiered education system starts at the very beginning: 57 percent of black kindergartners attend school in high-poverty classrooms (compared to 5 percent of white kindergartners).