African American students disproportionately attend schools that are overcrowded and that have a shortage of fully qualified teachers.
African Americans Nearly half a million African American children attend public school in California, just over 7 percent of schoolchildren. They are highly concentrated in a small number of schools, especially in five counties: Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Sacramento, Alameda, and San Diego. Despite promising preschool enrollment rates for children ages 3 and 4, and some schools with encouraging progress, comparing African American educational outcomes to national and California-wide results reveal stubbornly persistent disparities: • Early childhood education. Sixty-five percent of African American children attend preschool, the same percentage as white preschool-age children and well above that of Latinos.11 The ingredients for a strong start to cognitive, social, and emotional development are laid at this stage, though a high-quality preschool is critical for these benefits to accrue. • School quality. Nearly one in three African American high school students attend low-performing schools, as compared with only . 7 percent of white students and 11 percent of Asian students. African American students at all levels, on average, attend schools that are more overcrowded, that have a shortage of fully qualified teachers, and once in high school, that have insufficient slots in courses required for entrance . to the University of California or California State University system.12 F I G U R E 4 traces the pathway for one hundred African American ninth graders; only eight of each one hundred in the class of 2009 eventually enrolled in a California public four-year college.13
Figure 4
Too Few African American Ninth Graders Enroll in Four-Year Colleges
100
Out of every African American ninth graders in the class of 2009 . . .
52
graduated high school
16
had the A-G requirements to go to college
8
made it to a California public four-year college.
Source: “African American Educational Opportunity Report 2007,” Los Angeles: UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access and University of California All Campus Consortium on Research and Diversity.
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