Disparity in graduation rates baffles school officials in Maryland

Guy Leonard:

African-American students have been graduating from county high schools at a higher rate than their white counterparts for the past four years, data from the Maryland State Department of Education shows.

County educators and officials have been trying to close the achievement gap on standardized tests between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian counterparts, who generally score higher. Little attention has been paid to the fact higher percentages of blacks have been graduating than whites in Prince George’s.

So far, educators and system officials are baffled.

‘‘It’s surprising that it’s going that way,” said James Smallwood, principal at Forestville Military Academy in Forestville. ‘‘You would assume — I know I did — that looking at the data [of higher test scores], the whites would graduate accordingly. It’s caught a lot of us by surprise.”

In 2005 Prince George’s County Public Schools graduated 6,210 out of 7,078 African-American seniors, or roughly 88 percent, and 804 out of 972 white seniors, or about 83 percent.

In 2004 the numbers were even more divided.

In that year, 88 percent of African Americans graduated from high school, but only 80 percent of whites received a diploma.

The 2005 High School Assessments (HSAs) showed a significant gap between blacks and whites in nearly every subject.

For example, on the English test, 69 percent of whites passed, but only 39 percent of African Americans completed the test successfully.

In algebra, 59.5 percent of whites passed the assessment, but only 27 percent of African Americans made the grade.

Statistics also show that a greater percentage of African Americans are choosing to stay in school than whites.

Last year, 3.2 percent of African-American high school students dropped out, but almost 4 percent of whites left school.

Leroy Tompkins, chief accountability officer for the county schools system, was still encouraged by the relatively high graduation rates for both races.

‘‘Both groups are still graduating at a relatively high level,” Tompkins said. ‘‘But we have no explanation for that [the reverse graduation gap] phenomenon.”

The state began keeping graduation rate data in 2000.

Dean Sirjue, school board member from Bowie, said the graduation gap won’t likely last long. The HSAs are required for graduation from high school for the class of 2009, this school year’s freshmen, so those numbers are about to change.

‘‘When you have a smaller number of [white] students, a small number of [white] dropouts will mean a larger percentage for that group,” Sirjue said. ‘‘But when we go to the tests [that will count for graduation], this will completely reverse.

‘‘With the requirement now that each student will have to pass these core classes, we know from recent data that a significant number of African Americans will not pass.

‘‘We only have a short time to deal with that; I think that will be [newly hired Schools CEO John] Deasy’s biggest challenge.”

The really amazing thing about this story is that so many blacks were allowed to graduate from high school even though they had such poor High School Assessments scores. Apparently, in Prince George’s County, a knowledge of English and algebra is not considered that important for a high school graduate.

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