O'Reilly ignored MMFA correction, repeated false claim about black students' dropout rate

A little more than a month after Media Matters for America corrected FOX News Channel host and radio host Bill O'Reilly's false claim that "I see a worse black student dropout rate in 2000 than in '92," O'Reilly repeated the claim, this time on his nationally syndicated radio show, The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly.

From the July 7 broadcast of The Radio Factor:

O'REILLY: This is a competitive society. Yes, this society does give black Americans a little bit of help -- maybe not as much as we should, but you get a little bit of help that the white American wouldn't get on paper -- on paper. OK?

But if you don't do it yourself, the government's not going to do it for you. Naw. So you can vote Democratic all day long -- they're not going to help you. Clinton didn't help blacks. He didn't help them. The black high school dropout rate in 2000 was higher than it was in 1992. All right?

As Media Matters for America previously noted, the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported in 2003 that the dropout rate for black students ages 16 to 24 actually declined during the Clinton presidency. NCES's 2003 annual report on education, "The Condition of Education 2003," shows that the dropout rate for black students was 13.7 percent in 1992 and 13.1 percent in 2000.

—G.W.