Only 25 % high school graduation rate in Detroit, worst in nation.

MC.no.spin · 08-12-08, 05:08 AM

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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.

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.

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 Warner said.

Warner 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.

Cleveland's current graduation rates are also higher than the statistics cited in the new report, school district spokesman Ben Holbert said.

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.

FOXNews.com - High School Graduation Rates Plummet Below 50 Percent in Some U.S. Cities - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

No wonder why the Michigan economy sucks. Do these kids even attend a class? Somebody should get these kids to pull up their pants, show up and learn something.

We need more people like Bill Cosby, who try to instill responsibility, not make them into victims or just seek better welfare programs.

Quote:

Students should practice math like some practice sports, urges actor-comedian Bill Cosby:

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) -- Why can't students practice algebra for hours like teams practice sports?

That's what Bill Cosby asked a group of students at the Roger Putnam Vocational Technical High School yesterday.

And when freshman Kimya Thompson shouted that the subject was boring, Cosby, from Shelburne, brought her on stage.

He told her that if she and her peers didn't sharpen their academic skills, they'd be earning minimum wage.

Cosby told the 450 students that they couldn't go to jail for getting straight As, but they could get shot for selling drugs.

The 69-year-old earned his doctorate in education from U-Mass in 1977.

The Education Wonks: Dr. Bill Cosby Ed.D. On Education - Thoughts And Ideas Freely Exchanged

Kernel Sanders · 08-12-08, 05:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MC.no.spin

FOXNews.com - High School Graduation Rates Plummet Below 50 Percent in Some U.S. Cities - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News

No wonder why the Michigan economy sucks. Do these kids even attend a class? Somebody should get these kids to pull up their pants, show up and learn something.

We need more people like Bill Cosby, who try to instill responsibility, not make them into victims or just seek better welfare programs.

The Education Wonks: Dr. Bill Cosby Ed.D. On Education - Thoughts And Ideas Freely Exchanged

Wow - that's horrible. If the figure is 25% for the whole of Detroit I wonder what the worst school clocks in at? At a certain point it is a failure of the government and the public school systems, but when the dropouts outnumber the graduates 3:1 the issue is society, plain and simple.

DarkWizard12 · 08-12-08, 05:45 AM

Is it wrong to laugh in this instance? My brain says this is sad but human nature tells me to laugh maniacally.

I went to school in Detroit. Not to judge EVERYONE but, most of the students were terrible. No, in fact, everyone except my friends were terrible

While its sad that so many are dropping out, I still cannot lean back without the urge to...laugh.

I was talking to some of my friends the other day, you know the ones who got made fun off their whole lives and are now graduating, were saying how all the people who told them we would end up dead before they graduated are now either dead themeselves(all due to suicides and gangs)or drop outs and in the slums.

Now here I am in Texas, already graduated from high school along with the other ~90% of the class, and now going to graduate college.

Its hilarious how life works out.

MC.no.spin · 08-12-08, 11:59 AM

Well, this certainly helps me understand why Democrats get nearly all of the African American vote.

Edify_Always_In_All_Ways · 08-12-08, 06:52 PM

At least Detroit offered many jobs not requiring high school for a while on the assembly lines, but now those are dried up as well.

What I find almost sadder was that in the schools with the highest graduation rates (suburban Ohio), one in six students still dropped out.

1069 · 08-12-08, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edify_Always_In_All_Ways

At least Detroit offered many jobs not requiring high school for a while on the assembly lines, but now those are dried up as well.

What I find almost sadder was that in the schools with the highest graduation rates (suburban Ohio), one in six students still dropped out.

Oh, well.
They can always get GEDs and go get some sort of technical training.
Or go on to college, for that matter, if and when they feel up for more schooling.
School's not for everyone.

MC.no.spin · 08-12-08, 07:13 PM

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Originally Posted by 1069

Oh, well.
They can always get GEDs and go get some sort of technical training.
Or go on to college, for that matter, if and when they feel up for more schooling.

Not if they can't read and write.

I guess being able to rap might count for something. Look what it did for Eminem.

1069 · 08-12-08, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MC.no.spin

Not if they can't read and write.

I guess being able to rap might count for something. Look what it did for Eminem.

Whatever's clever. I'm sure they'll get by one way or another.
We all do, in the long run.

MC.no.spin · 08-12-08, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1069

Whatever's clever. I'm sure they'll get by one way or another.
We all do, in the long run.

Just hold very tightly onto your purse when in such an area. Mace is indicated. A glock is even better.

1069 · 08-12-08, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MC.no.spin

Just hold very tightly onto your purse when in such an area. Mace is indicated. A glock is even better.

Then perhaps we could try providing them with options other than school and crime.
Some people are suited for neither, but that doesn't mean they're completely useless. I'm sure we as a society could figure out some use for them, if we really tried. Perhaps they'd like to be productive citizens, but can't find any avenue to reaching that goal, once high school turns out to be unfeasible.