Black males and high school graduations

A report from the Massachusetts-based Schott Foundation paints a bleak picture of how young black men fare in school: fewer than half graduate from high school. And in some states, like New York, the graduation rate is as low as one in four. Only 47% of black male students entering high school in 2003 graduated in 2008. For white males, the graduation rate was 78%. Detroit had one of the worst black male graduation rates for any city: 27%. Low graduation rates are connected to high unemployment and incarceration rates among black men. Black males make up 40% of the U.S. prison population, but only 6% of the country's overall population.