Price of Failure

REVIEW SUMMARY
What. Black male students failing.
Issue. Do low graduation rates and prison data justify new approaches to educating black males?
Impact. Enormous cost. High school dropouts could lead to $3 trillion in losses in a decade.
By the numbers. Click here for an in-depth look at both the education gap, as well as unemployment, among Florida's male population.

Three Florida school districts rank at the very bottom among large school districts across the country when it comes to graduating black males.

The worst of the worst: Pinellas County.

The Schott Foundation for Public Education completed a study earlier this year showing Pinellas County ranks last among large districts when ranked by the percentage of black males graduating from its schools.

Only 21% of black males graduated based on data for the 2007-08 school year. That compares to 50% for white males, so there's a 29% achievement gap in Pinellas.

Lew Williams is a newly elected Pinellas County School Board member, and the only African American male school board member on the eight Gulf Coast school boards. “No. 1 when I first saw the numbers,” he begins, “we were somewhat dumbfounded. In Florida and the nation, the graduation rates for African American males were the lowest. It's totally unacceptable.”

The 47% black graduation rate nationally is 10 points higher than Florida's 37%. The national white male graduation rate is 78%.

Palm Beach County was second worst for black male graduation at 22%, followed by Duval County at 23%. Miami-Dade County ranked among the 10 worst coming in at number eight with just 27% of black males graduating.

In the state rankings, Florida ranks second to last with its 37% black males graduation rate, compared to 57% for white males. Schott uses a more conservative version to define graduation rate than the Florida department of education, which puts it at 54.9% that year. But it's the relative ranking that's meaningful.

That achievement gap, defined as the difference between the two percentages, is the focus of studies by the Schott Foundation and another organization calling for greater focus on finding solutions.

8% to 47% = very expensive

In 2009, it cost state taxpayers $18,980 to house a prisoner for a year in a state prison, a figure Gov.-elect Rick Scott is looking to pare down as he prepares next year's budget. State prisoners are sentenced for at least a year and a day.

With more than 100,000 people in Florida state prisons, that adds up to nearly $2 billion annually. The state's prison population that date includes about 47,500 black men, 47% of state prisoners. To understand the magnitude of that statistic, consider that black men were just 7.8% of the state's population as estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau as of July 1, 2009.

There are nearly as many white men behind bars — 42,602 — but they represent just 0.6% of the state's white males. For blacks, on the other hand, 3.3% of the state's 1.44 million black men are in state prisons. That means a black man is 5.6 times more likely to be in a state prison than a white man.

If black men were incarcerated at the rate of white men, — 0.6% — it would save the state $741 million a year. That's 21% of next year's predicted $3.5 billion state budget shortfall. And that savings would be every year.

Actually, the savings would be greater just factoring in the cost of housing a state prisoner has risen this year to about $19,700, according to Rick Davison, deputy secretary of the Florida department of corrections. The prison population also continues to grow.

None of this even takes in to account the human tragedy of the situation.

Davison, an African American and chairman of the Florida council on the social status of black men and boys, has been studying the issue. He says the Schott report “galvanized our council.” The council met recently with school district representatives, who he says were at first defensive, but acknowledged, “that this is a problem that needs to be resolved.”

In the long term, the economic costs of lost opportunities dwarfs the prison costs.

According to an August 2009 report from the Alliance for Excellent Education, if the 1.3 million students who dropped out of the Class of 2009 had graduated, the U.S. economy would have benefited from nearly $335 billion in additional income during their lifetimes.

Census data included in that report shows that in 2005 a high school dropout earned an average of just $17,299 a year compared to $26,933 for someone with a high school diploma.

Unemployment rates are also much higher for high school dropouts, according to the Alliance's study, which also cites research from Princeton University claiming that if graduation rates don't improve and 13 million students drop out in the next decade, it will add up to a loss of $3 trillion.

Unemployment rates for black males around the Gulf Coast reflect the problem. Those rates range from 15.9% in Pasco County, to 38.1% in Sarasota County, where the rate is more than two-and-a-half times the white male unemployment rate.

There is a little good news. Although the number of prisoners grew by nearly 16,000 over the previous five years, and 2.8% from the previous fiscal year ending June 30, the percentage of black male prisoners dropped from 48.3% in June 2005 to 47.1% as of June 2009.

That small improvement, however, may have much to do with the relative increase in women prisoners — up 24% in those five years compared to an increase of 18.5% for men. Interestingly, white women accounted for much of that, rising 35% to 4,167 in 2009.

One big problem that remains is the education level of prisoners. Test results show black males having a median grade level of 5.9, the lowest of any demographic group and just below what is considered functional literacy. A GED program in the prison system, funded by the Legislature several years ago, is beginning to show positive results.

A better pipeline

In the introduction to the Schott report, Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of Harlem Children's Zone, writes, “Currently, the rate at which black males are being pushed out of school and into the pipeline to prison far exceeds the rate at which they are graduating and reaching high levels of academic achievement. A deliberate, intense focus is needed to disrupt and redirect the current educational trajectory for black males.”

Canada speaks from his experience. Known as HCZ, it's structured as a community-wide, comprehensive pipeline from early childhood to a college preparatory program, covering a nearly 100-block area of Harlem.

HCZ is considered one of the successful models for education of black males, particularly in New York. The empire state ranks last — the only one worse than Florida — in the Schott report with only a 25% graduation rate for black males compared to 68% for white males.

In 2008, 93% of the program's Promise Academy High School ninth graders passed the statewide Algebra Regents exam.

“Everything in my professional career has pointed to the fact that there is no reason that the same black boys who are heading for prison cannot be heading for college and to the workplace.”

According to some experts, one of the big problems in addressing the issue of black male achievement in schools is the failure of school districts to take the models that work and adapt them to their district.

“There are some solutions to this huge problem, but that they're not being developed widely is hugely frustrating,” says Pedro Noguera, an author on the subject and professor of teaching and learning at New York University.

Noguera appeared on a national call-in radio show this month to discuss the findings of a report published in November by The Council of Great City Schools. The report compiled an array of eye-opening statistics, and concludes with a plan of action and 11 recommendations.

No targeted programs

Among Gulf Coast school districts, it appears little has been done that specifically targets black males with specialized instruction programs. However, there are programs in Hillsborough and Manatee counties focused on struggling students, many of whom are black males.

“If people knew how to fix this, they would do it in a heart beat,” says Candy Olson, vice chairman of the Hillsborough County School Board. Olson also happens to be on the executive committee of The Council of Great City Schools, and served on a committee overseeing the “Call for Change” report, so she's committed to doing something.

“It's about coaching, teaching and mentoring,” Olson says. “We haven't done it as well as anyone would like to see it done.”

One thing Hillsborough is doing, says Olson, is creating an all-boys middle school next year, building on success the district has had with classes for just boys or just girls. There will also be an all girls middle school. Franklin Middle School, located in a heavily minority area, will be the boys school.

That effort, and programs in the Manatee school district, seem to mesh well with what the Scott administration's education plan to make mentoring a focus.

Oneco Elementary School in Manatee County has been a single gender school for three years, and the district is also trying it out at Abel Elementary with two classes. It's not being done for black males, however, according to Lynette Edwards, the district's superintendent for curriculum and instruction, and an African American, though it may benefit them.

“We do not have specific programs targeted to black males,” says Edwards, repeating a common refrain of other district representatives around the Gulf Coast.

Davison, at the department of corrections, would like to see more focus on black males. He sees the failures of the educational system every day in the state prisons system, but says he acknowledges, “that simply pouring dollars into the system is not the response.”

“It's changing the mindset with everyone in the education system starting with the students themselves, the parents, the administration and the [department of education], says Davison. “It's going to take recognition of all those entities.”

But all this means a culture shift in black communities, where black males are often chided for trying to succeed in schools. “If we don't make some drastic changes,” Davison says, “we're going to lose that entire group.”