The state this week released a mountain of data that shows, among other things, that the racial gap for graduation rates in Buffalo has gotten slightly worse over the past few years.
The four-year graduation rate for black students in the Class of 2011 was 52 percent; for whites, 64 percent; Hispanics, 44 percent; and Asians, 51 percent.
The gap between black and white students in the district increased from 10 to 12 points in the past four years; the gap between Hispanic and white students remained at 20 points.
When you look at individual schools in the city, an interesting picture emerges.
The bottom line, it seems, is that generally, whatever racial group constitutes the majority in a school ends up with the highest graduation rate in that building.
For instance, white students constituted the majority of the senior class at City Honors, South Park and da Vinci. They also had the highest graduation rate at each of those schools.
Black students had a higher graduation rate than white or Hispanic students at nine out of 16 high schools in the city: Bennett, Burgard, East, Emerson, Lafayette, McKinley, Occupational Training Center, Oracle Charter and Tapestry Charter.
Of those, Lafayette was the only school where blacks did not constitute the majority of the graduating class. (There were 71 Hispanic students in Lafayette's Class of 2011, and 70 black students.)
And at four high schools, Hispanic students had a higher graduation rate than white or black students at Hutch Tech, International Prep, Performing Arts and Riverside. At each of those schools, there were more black students in the graduating class than any other racial group.
Here are the details. (In cases where there were fewer than 10 students in a racial group at a school, the state suppressed the results, for privacy reasons. In those cases, there is an "n/a" listed.)
| Enrollment | Graduation rate | |||||
| Black | Hispanic | White | Black | Hispanic | White | |
| Bennett | 210 | 9 | 15 | 36% | n/a | 27% |
| Bflo Acad Sci Charter | 53 | 3 | 5 | 74% | n/a | n/a |
| Burgard | 110 | 12 | 16 | 35% | 8% | 19% |
| City Honors | 34 | 7 | 74 | 88% | n/a | 97% |
| da Vinci | 38 | 18 | 50 | 84% | n/a | 98% |
| East | 163 | 4 | 12 | 41% | n/a | 25% |
| Emerson | 69 | 12 | 27 | 68% | 67% | 59% |
| Hutch Tech | 140 | 29 | 101 | 83% | 86% | 80% |
| Int'l Prep | 46 | 19 | 12 | 46% | 63% | 42% |
| Lafayette | 70 | 71 | 17 | 39% | 21% | 24% |
| McKinley | 174 | 20 | 66 | 68% | 55% | 64% |
| MST Prep | 64 | 3 | 6 | 69% | n/a | n/a |
| Occupational Trng Ctr | 54 | 9 | 14 | 67% | n/a | 50% |
| Oracle Charter | 49 | 12 | 8 | 63% | 58% | 63% |
| Performing Arts | 98 | 13 | 35 | 70% | 77% | 66% |
| Riverside | 103 | 47 | 52 | 28% | 36% | 33% |
| South Park | 56 | 27 | 128 | 45% | 44% | 66% |
| Tapestry Charter | 46 | 5 | 25 | 96% | n/a | 84% |
| WNY Maritime Charter | 41 | 2 | 7 | 76% | n/a | n/a |
(I focused on just the three racial groups because the number of Asian or American Indian students at most schools is so small that the state suppresses their graduation rates.)
- Mary Pasciak
facebook.com/mary.pasciak twitter.com/MaryPasciak mpasciak@buffnews.com
