White House Initiative Targets Education for African-Americans

President Barack Obama launched a new initiative Thursday aimed at improving the educational outcomes for African Americans, who despite steady progress in recent years on indicators such as high school graduation and college-going, still trail significantly behind their white and Asian peers.

The president signed an executive order to establish the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans , a move he first announced Wednesday night in New Orleans during a speech at the annual conference of the National Urban League, a leading civil rights organization.

In a broad stump speech that touched on a number of populist issues, including education, the president said he was creating the initiative for African Americans “so that every child has greater access to a complete and competitive education from the time they’re born all through the time...