Appalling Regents Diploma Rates for Minorities Highlight Need for CFE Reforms

Less than ten percent of Black or Latino students who enter New York City high schools graduate after four years with a Regents diploma, according to city figures released on November 29 during a hearing of the City Council Committee on Education. The hearing was held to gather testimony from the Department of Education, advocates, and other interested parties on two major issues: the reasons why minority children are substantially less likely to earn a Regents diploma than their white counterparts, and the work being done by education officials to improve the situation.

Testifying before the committee, Michele Cahill, senior counsel for education policy for Chancellor Joel Klein, acknowledged the disproportionately lower rates for Black and Latino students and called the situation "perhaps the most urgent problem that the school system faces." Ms. Cahill discussed initiatives put forth by Mayor Bloomberg -- such as the creation of small high schools and the addition of literacy and math coaches for struggling students -- as a means to ameliorate the problem.

While CFE welcomes the city's efforts to reduce the disparity, the statistics reveal a troubling, system-wide trend that necessitates a systemic response, as the courts have ordered. According to city figures, 54.3 percent of all students graduated on time in 2004, but only 18 percent of the class of 2004 graduated with a Regents diploma --- the degree that all children are expected to receive. The figures for Black and Latino students are even lower: Of the 23,541 black students who should have graduated in 2004, only 48.9 percent graduated on time, while just 9.4 percent earned a coveted Regents diploma, compared with 36 percent of white students. In fact, according to a report issued by the Education Committee in May 2005, the disproportionately low Regents diploma rate among Black and Latino students brought down the citywide average by one half.

This is precisely why the Court of Appeals, in its landmark ruling in the CFE case in 2003, called the city's appalling graduation rates "symptomatic of a system breakdown" and ordered the State to overhaul its school-funding system, including providing a major influx of education dollars. After the State failed to meet the court mandate the State Supreme Court was forced to step in, and in March 2005 ordered an increase of $5.6 billion to the city's schools.

As the governor continues his strategy of delay through his appeal of the March 2005 compliance order, hundreds of thousands of students across the state, especially those from poor and minority backgrounds, continue to be denied their constitutional right to a sound basic education. As Education Committee Chair Eva Moskowitz said during the hearing, the unfortunate upshot of failing to provide all children educational opportunity is a "civil rights crisis" of grave proportions that clearly disadvantages Black and Latino students over their white counterparts.

December 5, 2005