The U.S. Department of
Education's National Assessment of Educational Progress periodically measures
literacy skills at grades four, eight, and 12.
The results are reported at four
levels: At Basic and below Basic; at Proficient and at Advanced for each grade
level. As reading is the basis for all other education, and as by grade eight
schooling has had ample time to be effective, grade eight reading proficiency
can be taken as a good indicator of the quality of education available to
students.
The quality of the data made
available by NAEP allows us to identify those factors most significant in
determining whether a child will grow up in the virtuous circle of good
educational opportunities and class mobility, or the vicious circle of poor
educational opportunities and caste sedimentation.
In 1992, nine percent of black
students in grade eight read at the Proficient level and for all practical
purposes no black students read at the Advanced level. Twenty-one years later,
in 2013, 16 percent of black students read at the Proficient level in grade
eight and one percent read at the Advanced level. Although the percentage of
black students reading a grade level or above in grade eight has doubled, 83
percent of African American students still read below the level expected at
grade eight.
According to U.S. Department of
Education data for the 2011-12 school year, the most recent available, there
were 586,231 black students and in eighth grade. Therefore, there were nearly
half a million black students reading below grade level and almost exactly
100,000 black students reading at or above grade level in grade eight, which is
one-third the number that would be expected if Black students had equal
educational opportunities to those afforded white students.
Black students who reported that their parents who had
graduated from high school were at or above grade level 9 percent of the time in
2013. For black students who said that their parents had some education after
high school, 21 percent were at Proficient or above in 2013. The black children
of college graduates were at or above grade level 22 percent of the
time.
Twenty percent of black students, without regard to
family income or parental education attainment, attending schools in the
suburbs, as compared to 14 percent in city schools, read at or above grade
level.
Twenty-two percent of black eighth graders whose parents
had completed college were at least proficient readers as compared to 8 percent
of those whose parents had not completed high school.
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