Black education problems

Black students are underperforming other racial groups in a school district in Virginia:

GPA -- Asians have the highest GPA at 3.34, followed by whites 2.91, Hispanics 2.54, Native Americans 2.17 and African Americans 1.88. The African-American average is up from 1.71 the year before.

AP enrollment -- Only 9.5% of blacks took AP classes, compared to 77% of Asians, 49% of whites and 38% of Hispanics. That did, however, represent an increase in black students from just 7 in 2001 to 35 last year.

Graduation -- The combined graduation rate for all Jamestown and Lafayette students is 80%. For whites, it's 84%. For blacks, 60%. Only 33% of African Americans earned an Advanced Studies Diploma, compared to 64% of whites and 73% of Hispanics.

Programs -- Only 75 African Americans (4%) are in gifted programs, compared to 618 of whites, or 10%. Only 3 blacks took an honors course in 11th grade, compared to 94 whites. Only 5 blacks were in the National Honor Society, with 87 whites.

At the same time, blacks are over-represented in areas that indicate problems. There were 378 students (19%) in special education, compared to 795 (12%) whites. There were 283 blacks given in-school suspension and 296 blacks given out-of-school suspension, compared to 266 and 260 whites, respectively.

This means that blacks made up more than half of all suspensions, despite comprising 22% of the student population.