Cities cited for low high school graduation rates
Detroit, Indianapolis, Cleveland stand out in report by Colin Powell alliance
High school dropout rate on the rise
April 1: A new report funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation calls high school dropout rates a "national catastrophe." NBC's Mika Brzezinski reports.
updated 12:20 a.m. ET, Tues., April. 1, 2008
WASHINGTON - Seventeen of the nation’s 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday.
The report, issued by America’s Promise Alliance, found that about half of the students served by public school systems in the nation’s largest cities receive diplomas. Students in suburban and rural public high schools were more likely to graduate than their counterparts in urban public high schools, the researchers said.
Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. students graduate on time with a regular diploma and about 1.2 million students drop out annually.
“When more than 1 million students a year drop out of high school, it’s more than a problem, it’s a catastrophe,” said former Secretary of State Colin Powell, founding chair of the alliance.
His wife, Alma Powell, the chair of the alliance, said students need to graduate with skills that will help them in higher education and beyond. “We must invest in the whole child, and that means finding solutions that involve the family, the school and the community.” The Powell’s organization was beginning a national campaign to cut high school dropout rates.
Summit in every state planned
The group, joining Education Secretary Margaret Spellings at a Tuesday news conference, was announcing plans to hold summits in every state during the next two years on ways to better prepare students for college and the work force.
The report found troubling data on the prospects of urban public high school students getting to college. In Detroit’s public schools, 24.9 percent of the students graduated from high school, while 30.5 percent graduated in Indianapolis Public Schools and 34.1 percent received diplomas in the Cleveland Municipal City School District.
Researchers analyzed school district data from 2003-2004 collected by the U.S. Department of Education. To calculate graduation rates, the report estimated the likelihood that a 9th grader would complete high school on time with a regular diploma. Researchers used school enrollment and diploma data, but did not use data on dropouts as part of its calculation.
Many metropolitan areas also showed a considerable gap in the graduation rates between their inner-city schools and the surrounding suburbs. Researchers found, for example, that 81.5 percent of the public school students in Baltimore’s suburbs graduate, compared with 34.6 percent in the city schools.
In Ohio, nearly 83 percent of public high school students in suburban Columbus graduate while 78.1 percent in suburban Cleveland earn their diplomas, well above their local city schools.
U.S. graduation rates
A look at the graduation rates for the main school systems in the nation's 50 largest cities.
CITY DISTRICT (03-04 PERCENTAGE)
Mesa, Ariz. Mesa Unified District 77.1
San Jose, Calif. San Jose Unified 77.0
Nashville, Tenn. Nashville-Davidson Co. School Dist. 77.0
Colorado Springs, Colo. Colorado Springs School District 76.0
San Francisco San Francisco Unified 73.1
Tucson, Ariz. Tucson Unified District 71.7
Seattle Seattle School District 67.6
Virginia Beach, Va. Virginia Beach City Public Schools 67.4
Sacramento, Calif. Sacramento City Unified 66.7
Honolulu Hawaii Department of Education 64.1
Louisville, Ky. Jefferson County School District 63.7
Long Beach, Calif. Long Beach Unified 63.5
Arlington, Texas Arlington ISD* 62.7
Memphis, Tenn. Memphis City School District 61.7
San Diego San Diego Unified 61.6
Albuquerque, N.M. Albuquerque Public Schools 60.8
El Paso, Texas El Paso ISD* 60.5
Charlotte, N.C. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools 59.8
Wichita, Kan. Wichita Public Schools 59.6
Phoenix Phoenix Union High School District 58.3
Austin, Texas Austin ISD* 58.2
Washington District of Columbia Public Schools 58.2
Fresno, Calif. Fresno Unified 57.4
Boston Boston Public Schools 57.0
Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth ISD* 55.5
Omaha, Neb. Omaha Public Schools 55.1
Houston Houston ISD* 54.6
Portland, Ore. Portland School District 53.6
Las Vegas Clark County School District 53.1
San Antonio San Antonio ISD* 51.9
Chicago City of Chicago School District 51.5
Tulsa, Okla. Tulsa Public Schools 50.6
Jacksonville, Fla. Duval County School District 50.2
Philadelphia Philadelphia City School District 49.6
Miami Miami-Dade County School District 49.0
Oklahoma City Oklahoma City Public Schools 47.5
Denver Denver County School District 46.3
Milwaukee Milwaukee Public Schools 46.1
Atlanta Atlanta City School District 46.0
Kansas City, Mo. Kansas City School District 45.7
Oakland, Calif. Oakland Unified 45.6
Los Angeles Los Angeles Unified 45.3
New York New York City Public Schools 45.2
Dallas Dallas ISD* 44.4
Minneapolis, Minn. Minneapolis Public Schools 43.7
Columbus, Ohio Columbus Public Schools 40.9
Baltimore Baltimore City Public School System 34.6
Cleveland Cleveland Municipal City Sch. Dist. 34.1
Indianapolis Indianapolis Public Schools 30.5
Detroit Detroit City School District 24.9
Disparity in data
Ohio Department of Education spokesman Scott Blake said the state delays its estimates by a few months so it can include summer graduates in its calculations. Based on the state’s methodology, he said Columbus graduated 60.6 percent of its students in 2003-2004, rather than the 40.9 percent the study calculated.
By Ohio’s reckoning, Columbus has improved each year since the 2001-2002 school year, with 72.9 percent of students graduating in 2005-2006, Columbus Public Schools spokesman Jeff Weaver said.
Weaver said the gains were partly because of after-school and weekend tutoring, coordinated literacy programs in the district’s elementary schools and bolstered English-as-a-second-language programs.
Spellings has called for requiring states to provide graduation data in a more uniform way under the renewal of the No Child Left Behind education law pending in Congress.
Under the 2002 law, schools that miss progress goals face increasing sanctions, including forced use of federal money for private tutoring, easing student transfers, and restructuring of school staff.
States calculate their graduation rates using all sorts of methods, many of which critics say are based on unreliable information about school dropouts. Under No Child Left Behind, states may use their own methods of calculating graduation rates and set their own goals for improving them.
The research was conducted by Editorial Projects in Education, a Bethesda, Md., nonprofit organization, with support from America’s Promise Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The alliance is based on a joint effort of nonprofit groups, corporations, community leaders, charities, faith-based organizations and individuals to improve children’s lives.
Just found out today that we have over 32% of our seniors not eligible to graduate this year because of their GPA. Since January this year I've withdrawn over 50 kids that "dropped out" of high school to get their GED.
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ~ Jimi Hendrix
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Even if they do graduate, what does that mean exactly? The quality of our high school education has eroded due to social promotion over the years. There are high school graduates in CA who, college bound by the way, cannot read English.
It's time to get rid of public education. How much worse can a private system be?
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
We have Seniors that move back to their countries because they can't pass the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). FCAT is a graduation requirement.Originally Posted by gunnut
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ~ Jimi Hendrix
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
They will both fail without parent participation.
FCAT, to show an example of my last post.
My son is in the 3d grade. As you know, the first year of the FCAT test and the only year that they can be held back if they fail the english portion. My sons school sent letters home that there would be a meeting for parents to explain the FCAT and what we could do to help our kids. And why the school was doing certain things, like skipping around in the english book because the latest rewrite of the FCAT did not follow the english text the school bought 3 yrs ago. So there were things that needed to be covered(and reinforced at home) that the students would not have gotten to by test time if they followed the book.
350 3d graders at his school. The parent meeting was at 7PM. That time picked so parents could get off work, eat and then come to the meeting, also not on a church or school sports night. How many parents showed up?
19. And more than a few were couples. I counted. And it was very important information that was passed.
And yet those parents that were not there are the same ones that complain how bad the schools are.:(
Agreed. However, a private system where the parents' own money is involved, as in the dollar bills they see coming out of their wallets going to the school system, they will have a much greater incentive to get involved in the first place.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
And lower income people who lack the money?
In one fell swoop that kills any social mobility.
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway
Scholarships? Donations? Charities? Not spend money on that big screen TV? If they value education, they will find a way.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
Yes because every single lower income person has a big screen TV.Scholarships? Donations? Charities? Not spend money on that big screen TV? If they value education, they will find a way.
But yeah **** the poor, if they want to learn to read and count they will find the money.
Last edited by troung; 03 Apr 08, at 23:19.
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway
gunnut,
oh, it can be very bad. that's how madrassas got started up in pakistan- the collapse of the public school system there due to overspending on pakistan's wars led to a vacuum.It's time to get rid of public education. How much worse can a private system be?
guess who filled it- the wahabi saudis, funded with their oil money.
a dual system is better. education is one of the things in which too great levels of privatization is a danger to democracy. once the gap of information and education becomes too big and entrenched, what you have is the beginnings of a turn towards oligarchy.
The human mind cannot grasp the causes of phenomena in the aggregate. But the need to find these causes is inherent in man’s soul. And the human intellect, without investigating the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions of phenomena, any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, snatches at the first, the most intelligible approximation to a cause, and says: “This is the cause!"
-Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace
Very true, well said Astralis.
I firmly believe regardless of background you should get a solid public education, something that isn't difficult to get right - the only other option would be for the government to subsidise lower income bracket people's fees to private schools, but even that would produce a very hefty bill and create resentment on the part of those who have to pay.
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
- John Stuart Mill.
Yep.
It's not that tricky. Here the government pays ALL schools a set amount per pupil, thus private schools receive the same level of funding as public schools. Any extra fees in private schools are topped up by the parents.
You'd be surprised.
I'm not saying all low income families have big screen TVs. I'm using that as an illustration to frivalous spendings by all Americans, especially those who cannot afford to.
Did I say that? No. You said that. Just because you're heartless and/or can't cope with a challenging financial environment don't assume everyone else is.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
Are you saying there will be NO madrasas if we have public school systems?
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
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