Despite many rightly voiced concerns, not all the news about efforts to achieve racial equality in America is bad news, least of all the Census Bureau report this past week that showed blacks are now graduating from high school at the same rate as whites.
Based on a 1995 survey of 55,000 households, officials say that 86.5 percent of blacks aged 25 to 29 have successfully completed 12 years of school. Figure in the margin of polling error, and that rate is equal to the 87.4 percent of similarly aged whites holding high school diplomas.None of this means that all has been set aright, of course. High school diplomas, while crucial in today's economy, don't count for as much as they used to, and blacks still trail whites significantly in earning college degrees.
Should we all therefore despair? Absolutely not. The census report - which unfortunately did not show a gain by Hispanics, but perhaps because of ongoing immigration - is a sign that all those years of urging kids to stay in school are paying off. If much is left to be done, it's encouraging to see the progress that has been made.