About 71 percent of California’s high school students graduated “on time” in 2008, after four years – 3.7 percentage points below the national average, according to
a set of sobering numbers brought to you by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. (Page 5)
If you break the California numbers down by ethnicity, the disparities leap off the page: 57 percent of black students in the Class of 2008 graduated on time, compared to 61 percent of Latino students, 91 percent of Asian students and 80 percent of white students. (Page 7)
The state’s black students left school early at the highest rate: 9 percent dropped out in 2007-08, compared to 6 percent of Latino students, 2 percent of Asian students, and 3 percent of white students that year. (Page 15)
