This shocking statistic comes from the newly-released 2011 State of America’s Children Report by the Children’s Defense Fund.
The reports also highlights the following findings that illustrate the school-to-prison pipeline:
* Nearly 80 percent or more of Black and Hispanic public school students in the fourth, eighth and 12th grades are unable to read or do math at grade level compared to 50 percent or more of White children.
• Black students are more than three times as likely as White or Asian/Pacific Islander students and more than twice as likely as Hispanic students to be suspended from school.
• Thirty-five percent of Black and 29 percent of Hispanic high school students attend the more than 1,600 “dropout factories” across the country where 60 percent or fewer of the students in any given ninth grade class will graduate in four years with a regular diploma.
• The averaged graduation rate for Black and Hispanic students is just over 60 percent, in contrast with 81 percent for White and 91 percent for Asian/Pacific Islander students. The 20-plus percentage point spread in graduation rates between Black and White students exists in 13 states.* Youth of color make up approximately two-thirds of youth in the juvenile justice system.
• Black youth are over three times more likely than all other groups to be arrested for a violent offense.
• The number of girls arrested has grown by 50 percent since 1980; American Indian girls are four times
and Black girls three times more likely to be incarcerated than White girls.
• Black youth make up 62 percent of those prosecuted in adult court, but only 17 percent of the overall youth population.
