Description:

"Academic Achievement among African American Students: A Study of School Performance in South Carolina" by Dr. George C. Bradley and Dr. Tina Marshall-Bradley, a vice president and the education dean, respectively, at Claflin University, follows up the authors' earlier study that found "an alarming trend" -- students in predominantly African American school districts in the state achieve lower standardized test scores as they move up in grades. Five years later, the trend has not changed in the school districts, which are generally rural and poor. "African American students in the third grade are not doing well and continue to lose ground through the eighth grade," the earliest and latest grades in which the required standardized tests are administered. The "districts are playing catch up and losing; in fact, they are falling further behind...," according to the authors.