Life
Palm Beach County, Florida, looking to boost graduation rates for black males
African American Prep school boys. PHOTO/File
The Palm Beach County School District needs to put its resources into more tutoring, getting students to take more Advanced Placement classes and hiring more black male teachers to bridge the racial gap in graduation rates and decrease suspensions of black males, a district task force has recommended.
The graduation rate for black students in Palm Beach County public high schools, including charters, last year was 66.5 percent – about 22 percent lower than that for white students, state statistics show. The suspension rate for black middle-schoolers was 30 percent last year, compared to 8 percent for white students, according to district statistics.
“The responsibility for the disparities among our young people lies with the adults, not the students in Palm Beach County,” reads the opening line of the task force’s draft report.