• Statewide
• Detroit

Inequities in Graduation Rates

Black enrollment statistics for Michigan are dominated by those for Detroit, which show extraordinary year-to-year variations and other unusual patterns. Black male students in Detroit graduated at much lower rates in 2005/6 than the national average, sharply declining from the 2004/5 rate. There are very few White, non-Hispanic students in Detroit. The rate for the relatively small number of White male students also declined to one of the lowest levels in the country. The graduation rate for Black male students is less than a quarter of the Benchmark.

The Benchmark for graduation rates of Black male students for school districts enrolling more than 10,000 Black male students is 82% (Fort Bend, Texas).

Discipline, Special Education, and Advanced Placement Inequities

The number of out-of-school suspensions given to Black male students in the Detroit public schools was equivalent to eleven percent of Detroit's Black, non-Hispanic male student population and the percentage of out-of-school suspensions given to White male students in Detroit was equivalent to seven percent, in the 2004/5 school year, as reported to the Office of Civil Rights of the U. S. Department of Education. One hundred thirty-five Black (and five White) male students were expelled from the Detroit schools.

Black, non-Hispanic male students were placed in Mental Retardation classifications at approximately the same rate as that for White male students.

More than twice times as many White male students as Black male students in the Detroit public schools in 2004/5 were allowed to participate in Mathematics and Science Advanced Placement courses, proportionate to enrollment.