African American males drop out at a higher rate than other groups proportion to their population in the United States of America. There must be extenuating circumstances to this dilemma in education. There is no evidence that African American males can’t learn or don’t want to learn, therefore, other factors clearly contribute to this event. This research paper will highlight those factors.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to identify the reasons and or factors that contribute to the dropout rate amongst African American males in high school.
Significance of the Study
The significance of the study is paramount. The researcher is an African American grad student who is invested in the community. …show more content…
African American male’s dropout rate is around 42% according to the NCES the National Center for Education Statistics. There is some discrepancy surrounding the reporting of such data. Dr. Ivory A. Toldson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama as the deputy director of the White House Initiative on HBCU’s, is an author, researcher and educational scholar, he is on leave from his post as an associate professor at Howard University, he sees things a little differently and argues that the NCES numbers are not totally accurate.
He states there is a difference between graduation rates and dropout rates. Graduation rates are normally obtained by dividing the number of students receiving diplomas by the number of students who began high school four years earlier. This yields a national graduation rate of 47% amongst African American males and 78% for white males.
The NCES tracks dropout rates by using the Current Population Survey (CPS) which is the percentage of 16-24 year olds in the United States who withdrew from grades 10 to 12 within the last 12 …show more content…
The poverty line in the United States is a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 children under the age of 18) cannot earn more than $23,021. This places many people at or below the poverty line, including the working poor.
Children living in poverty have a higher absenteeism rate that those who are above the poverty line, many students leave school simply because they’ve missed too many days of school.
Children living in poverty are also more likely to drop out of school to work and/or take care of a sick family member. 40% of children living in poverty are not prepared for primary school.
Children living in poverty are 1.3 times more likely to have developmental delays or learning disabilities than those who don’t grow up in poverty.
At the end of the 4th grade, African American students are already 2 years behind grade level, and by 12th grade many are 4 years behind.
It is clear that poverty has a great impact on children’s ability to learn and stay in school. When a child is concerned about where there next meal is coming from, or if the lights are going to get turned off, or if they will be evicted this month, he or she is certainly not focused on learning and they are probably not concerned about graduating from high