Maryland Report Documents Ongoing Disparites

Black Issues in Higher Education, May 13, 1999 by Karin Chenoweth

WASHINGTON -- In the first of what is expected to be a series of state-by-state reports on the status of Blacks in higher education in the South, the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) declares that although Maryland has been in some ways a leader in ensuring equal educational opportunities for African Americans, it still has, in the words of the report's title, Miles to Go.

"African American students are being lost at every point in the educational continuum, from grade school through the university, the report says.

The Maryland study follows a report by the same name, which was issued last August, on how the South as a whole is doing in meeting its obligations under the Adams case. Adams is the Supreme Court case that determined that southern states still have segregated higher education systems that must be dismantled, in part through equal funding of all public colleges in the South. (For more information on the original Miles to Go report, see Black Issues, Sept. 17, 1998.)

The Maryland report was prepared with the cooperation of much of Maryland's officialdom, including the state's higher education commission, department of education, many university presidents, and the General Assembly.

In commenting on the report, State Del. Howard P. Rawlings (D), a member of the SEF's national advisory panel, says, "None of us can afford to have this growing segment of our college-age population undereducated, and we have a vested interest in changing conditions so that they can succeed."

The report cites statistics that say that while 80 percent of White students who entered Maryland's high schools in 1992 graduate four years later, only 62 percent of African American students did the same. Similarly, while 61 percent of the state's White high school graduates enrolled in higher education in 1996, only 53 percent of their African American counterparts did so.

In addition, of the Black students enrolling in higher education in 1996, the majority--57 percent--attended community colleges, from which they are less likely than White students to transfer to four-year institutions. Among first-year students at community colleges in 1992, 38 percent of White students had graduated or transferred to four-year institutions by 1996, while only 19 percent of Black students had.

However, the report does not explain that community college transfer rates are very difficult to determine. For example, in Maryland, students are only counted as transferring if they transfer to a public, four-year college in Maryland. A student who transfers from Prince George's County Community College, for example, to private Howard University or even the public University of Delaware would not be counted as having transferred.

To address the inequities it found, the SEF recommends that Maryland take steps in three general areas:

* Teacher Preparation: SEF recommends that Maryland require that all teachers be fully prepared and certified. Overall, only 6 percent of Maryland teachers have provisional certification, but they tend to be heavily concentrated in Baltimore City and Prince George's County, where the student populations are 86 and 75 percent African American, respectively.

* Financial Aid: SEF recommends that financial aid be available to ensure that all students who want to attend college be able to afford it. The foundation notes that more than half of all African Americans who received financial aid in 1996 were Pell Grant recipients, compared to 16 percent of Whites. Additionally, the foundation discovered that the value of those grants has dropped from 80 percent of the cost of college to 40 percent.

* College Readiness: The SEF recommends that all students be required to complete a college-readiness curriculum in order to graduate from high school. In Maryland, 71 percent of White high school graduates complete the core curriculum recommended for college admission while only 60 percent of African American graduates do. However, the state is putting into place new high school graduation requirements that it claims will in effect require every student to be ready to learn at the college level beginning in 2001.

In reaction to the report, University of Maryland Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg says that the issue of steering African American students away from a college preparation curriculum is one of the key problems.

"We have to get rid of the obsolete idea that only some of our children will go to college. Seventy-two percent of our students enroll in college enroll within two years of graduating from high school. We are approaching a time of near-universal college attendance. We have got to make sure all of our students are prepared."

The SEF is a private charity founded 130 years ago to promote equity and quality in education in the South, with a primary emphasis on African Americans and poor people.