Student Demographics

In 2000 approximately forty-seven million public school students were enrolled in kindergarten through twelfth grade in the United States. According to The Condition of Education, 2002 (Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, 2003), approximately 39 percent of these students belonged to a minority group. Hispanics (16.6 percent) and African-Americans (16.6 percent) accounted for the largest number of minority students in public schools, and these figures represent a significant increase since the early 1970s, when white students made up nearly 78 percent of the public school population. (See Table 7.1.)

Educational Attainment

In the United States, education is often presented as a way out of poverty to a better life. Many observers believe education is the key to narrowing the economic gap between the races. Unfortunately, minority students are generally more likely than their white counterparts to drop out of school.

Progress for African-American Students

In the late nineteenth century about two-thirds of white...