Education Outcomes in The United States By Race and Other Classifications - Racial Achievement Gap

Racial Achievement Gap

The education of African Americans and some other minorities lags behind those of other U.S. ethnic groups, such as Whites and Asian Americans, as reflected by test scores, grades, urban high school graduation rates, rates of disciplinary action, and rates of conferral of undergraduate degrees. Indeed, high school graduation rates and college enrollment rates are comparable to those of whites 25 or 30 years ago. It should also be noted that the category of African immigrant population has the highest educational attainment of any group in the United States, but they represent a small group within the larger African American population.

Although African Americans generally lag behind Asian Americans in test scores, so do Whites to a lesser degree. However, compared with children in areas of China and India where some children, especially girls end their education after the elementary level, education in the United States is compulsory to age 16 regardless of race or class. It is expected that over half of public education students will be required to pass standards-based assessments which expect that all students to be at least exposed to algebra by high school and exit prepared for college. In many other nations, such as Germany and Japan, those with lower test scores may be tracked as skilled tradepersons or unskilled laborers.