The percentage of K-12 public schools in the United States with students who are poor and are mostly Black or Hispanic is growing and these schools share a number of challenging characteristics. From school years 2000-01 to 2013-14 (the most recent data available), the percentage of all K-12 public schools that had high percentages of poor and Black or Hispanic students grew from 9 to 16 percent,

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights met about half its performance targets under its four strategic goals for fiscal years 2009 through 2013. Under its goal covering the use of its state advisory committees (SACs), which study civil rights issues within each state, the commission met only 7 of 35 targets. For two goals related to the commission's reporting on civil rights issues and oversight of

In summary, as of August 2012, USDA had fully addressed three of our recommendations, made significant progress toward addressing two, and made some progress toward addressing one.

The USCG is making progress toward becoming a model equal employment opportunity (EEO) program, as defined by EEOC. In fiscal year 2008, the USCG established a cross-functional task force, including many divisions of Coast Guard and co-led by the Civil Rights Director and the Assistant Commandant for Human Resources, to identify EEO problems, review data, as well as develop and implement plans to

The United States Coast Guard's (USCG) Civil Rights Directorate's (CRD) principal functions are to provide Equal Opportunity (EO) services to its approximately 50,000 active duty military, and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) services to its 8,000 civilian employees. We reported in April 2010 that CRD had taken action to help resolve its management challenges, such as dissatisfaction among USCG

Of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) six equal employment opportunity program model elements, CRD's action plans focus mainly on the first--agency leadership. Of the 29 action plans developed and implemented by CRD to address the 53 recommendations in the recent external review, almost half center on the leadership element. For example, one action plan involved scheduling train

In accordance with DOJ guidance that encourages components to conduct assessments of electronic data systems at least once a year in order to ensure that the systems are performing cost effectively and continue to meet the needs of the users, the Division reported conducting annual assessments of ICM's performance from fiscal years 2001 through 2006, but has not assessed the performance of ICM si

ASCR's difficulties in resolving discrimination complaints persist--ASCR has not achieved its goal of preventing future backlogs of complaints. At a basic level, the credibility of USDA's efforts has been and continues to be undermined by ASCR's faulty reporting of data on discrimination complaints and disparities in ASCR's data. Even such basic information as the number of complaints is subject

ASCR's difficulties in resolving discrimination complaints persist--ASCR has not achieved its goal of preventing backlogs of complaints. The credibility of USDA's efforts has been and continues to be undermined by ASCR's faulty reporting and disparities in ASCR's data. Even such basic information as the backlog of complaints is subject to wide variation in ASCR's reports to the public and Congres

The Commission has some policies that provide adequate quality assurance for its products; however, it lacks policies for ensuring the objectivity of its national office reports, briefings, and hearings and providing accountability for decisions made on its national office products. Among its key policies, the Commission requires its national office products to be reviewed for legal sufficiency a