For over five years, The Schott Foundation for Public Education has tracked the performance of Black males in public education systems across the nation.* Past efforts by Schott were designed to raise the nation’s consciousness about the critical education issues affecting Black males; low graduation rates, high rates of placement in special education, and the disproportionate use of suspensions and expulsions, to name a few.

The 2008 edition, Given Half a Chance: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males, details the drastic range of outcomes for Black males, especially the tragic results in many of the nation’s biggest cities. Given Half a Chance also deliberately highlights the resource disparities that exist in schools attended by Black males and their White, non-Hispanic counterparts. The 2008 Schott report documents that states and most districts with large Black enrollments educate their White, non-Hispanic children, but do not similarly educate the majority of their Black male students. Key examples:

• More than half of Black males did not receive diplomas with their cohort in 2005/2006.
• The state of New York has 3 of the 10 districts with the lowest graduation rates for Black males.
• The one million Black male students enrolled in the New York, Florida, and Georgia public schools are twice as likely not to graduate with their class as to do so.
• Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, South Carolina, and Wisconsin graduated fewer Black males with their peer group than the national average.
• Illinois and Wisconsin have nearly 40-point gaps between how effectively they educate their Black and White non-Hispanic male students.

These trends, and others cited in Given Half a Chance, are evidence of a school-age population that is substantively denied an opportunity to learn, and of a nation at risk.

* Black students are defined by the U.S. Department of Education as “students having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa as reported by their school.” Data in the Report are based on information from the U. S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics and Office for Civil Rights, state departments of education and local school districts.