Graduation rate chart from the 2015 Schott Foundation Report
Montgomery County Public Schools had the highest graduation rate for black male students among large schools districts in the United States during the 2011 – 2012 school year, according to a study released Wednesday.
The Schott Foundation, which has tracked data related to black male graduation rates for its biennial reports since 2004, found that MCPS had the highest graduation rate in the nation among districts with 10,000 or more black students. MCPS also had the highest rate in the 2012 and 2010 Schott reports and was ranked third in the 2008 report.
The foundation acknowledged that its reporting methodology has some drawbacks. Many states and localities do not report graduation rates categorized by race and gender, so the foundation uses estimates based on federal data. However, the foundation does use data from states or localities if it is available, according to the study’s methodology.
The foundation used statistics from the 2011-2012 school year for its current report. In that school year 74 percent of black male students graduated from MCPS. The MCPS graduation rate for white male students was 91 percent.
The county’s graduation rate for black males was 6 percentage points higher than the second highest rate for large districts: 68 percent for black male students in Cumberland County, North Carolina, according to the study. The national average for graduation rates of black males was 59 percent.
Baltimore County came in third, with 67 percent of black male students graduating, while neighboring Prince George’s County was ranked eighth, with a rate of 55 percent.
MCPS noted in a press release that the graduation rate for black male students increased to 81.9 percent during the 2013-2104 school year—a jump of nearly 8 percentage points in two years.