The U.S. Department of Education is celebrating improvements in United States high school graduation rates overall and its finding that the graduation rates of Latino and Black students are improving faster than the national average. Putting aside the dubious measure used – four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate – and the serious conceptual and technical issues in the calculations (don’t ask), the data accompanying the announcement directs our attention to some matters of interest at the state level.

this_is_dropout_nation_logoFor all the debate over the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, we must remember that primary and secondary education are state responsibilities, administratively, fiscally and in terms of policy, except insofar as the federal government takes a role in these matters, which is sometimes quite minor and never predominant. The quality of education available to students therefore varies among the states and, because of differences in state policies and practices, opportunities for education vary within states.

For example, the U.S. Department of Education has recently found that funding within states between districts with high rates of poverty and those with low rates of poverty can greatly differ. In fact, the gap between per-pupil spending between our poorest and wealthiest districts have increased over the past decade. Wealthier districts spent 10.8 percent more than high-poverty districts in 2002; they now spend 15.6 percent more today.

In 23 states districts serving the highest percentage of students from low-income families are spending fewer state and local funds per pupil than districts that have fewer students in poverty. In 20 states, districts serving a high percentage of minority students are spending fewer state and local funds than districts that have fewer minority students. Now school spending isn’t everything – and lots of districts regardless of demographics spend money badly. But it is clear that nearly half the nation’s state governments have decided to spend more of taxpayers’ funds on White and comparatively well-off students than on children from low-income and minority families.

But then there are other examples of how poorly political leaders and others think of Black, Latino, and low-income children. This can be seen in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Both are prosperous states with progressive histories; Minnesota even has a self-proclaimed reputation for “niceness.” But neither state are all that nice for Black, Latino, and poor children or for their families.

Minnesota’s traditional public schools work very well for White children, with 85 percent of them graduating in four years according to the federal government’s adjusted cohort graduation rate. But they don’t work so well for other children. The graduation rate for Minnesota’s black students is 28 percent lower than that for Whites, while the graduation rates for Latino and American Indian students are, respectively, 26 and 36 percentage points below that of Whites.

Wisconsin’s public schools are also highly successful for White children, graduating more than 92 percent of the adjusted cohort of White children in four years. But the schools are also not very nice for poor and minority children. Black students graduate at levels 26 percent lower than White students. The graduation rates for Latino and Native students are also in the pits.

How bad are the gaps in graduation rates between White and Black students in both states? Their gaps are, respectively, 15 and 13 percent greater than that for Mississippi, and 18 and 16 percent greater than that for Alabama. Based on the data, you can ascertain that opportunities for high-quality education in the Deep South are greater than in two of our most “progressive” states. You can also say it the other way: That Minnesota and Wisconsin are twice as racist as Mississippi and Alabama. Either way, how nice is that?

But this isn’t a surprise. Minnesota and Wisconsin also have astronomical incarceration rates for Black men, as well as astronomical disparities between incarceration rates for Black and White men. As I wrote in 2013 about Milwaukee and Wisconsin, a Black family would be better off in Mississippi than in the Dairy State, and this also holds true when it comes to the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

But are the conditions for Blacks and other minorities in Minnesota and Wisconsin examples of institutional racism. Though they could be unforeseeable racist outcomes of blind institutional forces, I wouldn’t say so. These are examples of the decisions made, every day, by individuals in both states as well as throughout this entire country.

Just as a new police chief in Ferguson or New York City can simply order the police to behave toward Black men as they behave toward White men, so in Minneapolis and Milwaukee the police chiefs and prosecutors could do the same. But they don’t. Similarly, it is the individual responsibility of chief state school officers, superintendents, school boards and others to give Black students the same educational opportunities, schools of the same quality that they provide for White students. But in Minneapolis and Milwaukee, they don’t.

These police chiefs, district attorneys, district and state superintendents, go to their offices each morning and decide to arrest, prosecute and imprison much higher percentages of Black than White people, to provide better schools for White than for Black children. Don’t they? Of course they do. If they didn’t, it wouldn’t happen.

The education officials in Wisconsin and Minnesota have, no doubt, read the press releases from the U.S. Department of Education containing this latest batch of data telling of their shame. And now they could, if they wish, improve the prospects of the Black children in their care. Or they might, as they have been doing, simply encourage their colleagues to build more prisons.