<p>"WASHINGTON<em></em> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. students graduate on time with a regular diploma and about 1.2 million students drop out annually.</p>
<p>“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…</p>
<p>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…</p>
<p>For those who are interested, the linked article does not provide a list of the 17 cities with high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, nor does it give details on the rates at the 33 other largest cities.</p>
<p>From the America’s Promise Alliance report:
City Principal School District </p>
<p>City Principal School District Grad. Rate Rank by Graduation Rate
Mesa Mesa Unified District 77.1% 1
San Jose San Jose Unified 77.0 2
Nashville-Davidson Co. Nashville-Davidson Co. School District 77.0 3
Colorado Springs Colorado Springs School District 76.0 4
San Francisco San Francisco Unified 73.1 5
Tucson Tucson Unified District 71.7 6
Seattle Seattle School District 67.6 7
Virginia Beach Virginia Beach City Public Schools 67.4 8
Sacramento Sacramento City Unified 66.7 9
Honolulu Hawaii Department of Education 64.1 10
Louisville/Jefferson Co. Jefferson County School District 63.7 11
Long Beach Long Beach Unified 63.5 12
Arlington Arlington ISD 62.7 13
Memphis Memphis City School District 61.7 14
San Diego San Diego Unified 61.6 15
Albuquerque Albuquerque Public Schools 60.8 16
El Paso El Paso ISD 60.5 17
Charlotte Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools 59.8 18
Wichita Wichita Public Schools 59.6 19
Phoenix Phoenix Union High School District 58.3 20
Austin Austin ISD 58.2 21
Washington District of Columbia Public Schools 58.2 22
Fresno Fresno Unified 57.4 23
Boston Boston Public Schools 57.0 24
Fort Worth Fort Worth ISD 55.5 25
Omaha Omaha Public Schools 55.1 26
Houston Houston ISD 54.6 27
Portland Portland School District 53.6 28
Las Vegas Clark County School District 53.1 29
San Antonio San Antonio ISD 51.9 30
Chicago City of Chicago School District 51.5 31
Tulsa Tulsa Public Schools 50.6 32
Jacksonville Duval County School District 50.2 33
Philadelphia Philadelphia City School District 49.6 34
Miami Dade County School District 49.0 35
Oklahoma City Oklahoma City Public Schools 47.5 36
Denver Denver County School District 46.3 37
Milwaukee Milwaukee Public Schools 46.1 38
Atlanta Atlanta City School District 46.0 39
Kansas City Kansas City School District 45.7 40
Oakland Oakland Unified 45.6 41
Los Angeles Los Angeles Unified 45.3 42
New York New York City Public Schools 45.2 43
Dallas Dallas ISD 44.4 44
Minneapolis Minneapolis Public Schools 43.7 45
Columbus Columbus Public Schools 40.9 46
Baltimore Baltimore City Public School System 34.6 47
Cleveland Cleveland Municipal City School District 34.1 48
Indianapolis Indianapolis Public Schools 30.5 49
Detroit Detroit City School District 24.9 50
50-City Total 51.8%
<a href=“http://www.americaspromise.org/uploadedFiles/AmericasPromiseAlliance/Dropout_Crisis/SWANSONCitiesInCrisis040108.pdf[/url]”>http://www.americaspromise.org/uploadedFiles/AmericasPromiseAlliance/Dropout_Crisis/SWANSONCitiesInCrisis040108.pdf</a></p>
<p>I wonder how these numbers would have changed if private schools, home schools, GED, etc had been factored in. I didn’t find the list of 17, but I know that my hometown of St. Louis has positively dismal public schools. For us, this means that there are tons of private schools that give merit aid, tuition vouchers available so that you can get the pricetag of some schools to be even more manageable, and a strong community college program that promotes obtaining a GED by offering inexpensive classes and testing.</p>
<p>While I completely understand that not everyone has the opportunity to attend a school besides its district public school, I still think it would be interesting to see how this figure would change if other types of schools are added in. Though these numbers seem horrible, I wonder how the trend has changed in these cities over the last, say, decade. Perhaps a district that is only graduating 40% of its students this year is actually up from only 35% a few years ago. In that case, it would be a marked improvement, though still low.</p>
<p>Doesn’t seem like there will be any quick fix to this one. What do you think would help eliminate this problem?</p>
<p>Plenty of future Wal-Mart workers and burger flippers competing for jobs, keeping wages low. Failed 10th grade math? You’re not entitled to health insurance. </p>
<p>Sounds pretty successful to me. What’s to fix?</p>
<p>Kristin, there are regular attempts to address the problems of the school system you are referring to, and they are regularly opposed by organizations such as the NEA. Several times in recent years, legislators have attempted to pass a bill that would allow for individuals to obtain a tax credit for contributions to a scholarship fund that would distribute scholarships to students in schools that have been designated by the state as “failing”. That is the entire St. Louis public school system, among others. Not only is this bill defeated every year, but the sponsors are vilified.</p>
<p>Expansion of charter schools (it is a very limited law in your state), tuition tax credits, freedom of school choice within large systems, improvement of the teacher corps by changes to the hiring and firing laws and unitary pay scale…there are a lot of options that could be tried. As Northstarmom said above, desperate times call for some innovative measures.</p>
<p>The organization BAEO (Black Alliance for Educational Options) maintains a web site that discusses some of the experiments underway.</p>
<p>Thanks to those who posted the details on specific metro school districts.</p>
<p>One thing the OP’s article mentions is that there is no standard way used to report high school graduation rates, so the measures used vary widely.</p>
<p>This is obviously a very hard problem to address. I believe the Bill & Melinda Gates Fund has contributed significant resources to see what might work, with poor results. Does anyone have any further details on the specifics of what they tried?</p>
<p>Could it possibly be a problem with the students and families? Naw that’s impossible! We all know every kid enters school on an equal footing and has exactly the same home life as every other kid. </p>
<p>As with many things in America, we want to fix the end result without looking at eliminating the causes. Is it “really” the NEA? really? Is it really that one or two bad teachers we all have antidotal stories about, that are “protected bad teachers”? I mean the student would have graduated on time, “if not for Mrs. Henderson and her world history class” Nevermind the 40 other excellent teachers they had along the way, when they showed up for class.</p>
<p>Did anybody give thought that kids aren’t interested in school public or private in some sectors of our society? Reasons vary from being dirt poor to having more fun stuff in their room that is more appealing than class. But of course this will turn into a “I hate the teachers union and they are the entire cause of all the problems. rant” In looking at Washington’s study of dropouts, the number one reason for droping out was “boredom”. In other words school wasn’t entertaining enough compared to halo3. </p>
<p>The problem is a societial problem that won’t be addressed because the problem as the old cartoon strip said…“is us.” We will point the finger like mad in the same way we blamed Iraq for 9/11. Why? because it’s easier to blame those we don’t like already then to look at the real cause.</p>
<p>"Could it possibly be a problem with the students and families? "</p>
<p>Yes, that is part of the problem. Areas that have low high school graduation rates consequently have school children being raised by parents with little knowledge of (and sometimes little interest in ) how to assist their kids in their education. The parents may be functionally illiterate and have other problems such as having been very young when they gave birth. </p>
<p>A friend of mine who consulted with a local school district that is one of the state’s poorest told me that school officials there told her that it was not unusual to have 14-year-old girls who were having their second babies.</p>
<p>At the same time, however, due to school systems’ reliance on property taxes, the places with the largest proportion of poor people have the worst quality in schools and teachers, getting a high proportion of teachers who are uncertified in the areas in which they teach, are very new to the profession or who wouldn’t be allowed to teach in schools with strong parent involvement because the parents would have them kicked out. </p>
<p>I remember that when I lived in Detroit, I did lots of community service and speaking in that city and in surrounding areas – ranging from some of the most wealthy districts in the country to some of the poorest. Once in Flint, Michigan, I made a presentation in the meeting room of the district office. There was a large hole in the ceiling and one could see the roof. Water was dripping into the room. Chairs were falling apart. That was what the administration was able to afford for itself! Imagine what the buildings were like for the children.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in most if not all of the schools in that city, at least 80% of students qualified for free lunches, and at least half of the students each year changed schools due to families’ moving (typically due to not being able to pay rent).</p>
<p>So, those are some of the concerns that need to be addressed. Regardless of who causes these problems, there needs to be far more attention and assistance given by the government to solving the problem. It impacts the whole society when large numbers of people in this country lack even high school educations at a time in which virtually everyone needs some post high school training/education in order to earn a living wage.</p>
<p>OpieofMay…oops, I mean Barney, discussing the role of the NEA as a political powerhouse that lobbies against proposals that threaten the power of its position as a labor union is not, and never has been, a criticism of teachers. </p>
<p>Nobody is ranting here except you. Entire school systems have failed, and concerned citizens, scholars, researchers and just plain families would like to see some new things tried. Some of those new approaches will necessarily alter existing hiring and firing rules, and loosen/tighten various existing professional barriers to entry to the teaching profession. Those rule changes do not represent a threat to talented, dedicated teachers, and they should not be cause for husbands of teachers to attack people whose sole interest is seeing that all students have the opportunity to attend schools that work for them.</p>
<p>The graduation rate is below 50% where I live but even more striking is WHO drops out; the gender distribution for eighth grade is approximately 50-50 male/female and by the end of ninth grade it’s approximately 15-85 male/female!</p>
<p>Barney is correct that the environment in the inner city is a major cause for the problem. However, addressing social issues of drugs and teen pregnancies, transient populations and absentee fathers (and mothers) is much more difficult for the government to come in and change via laws or programs. </p>
<p>However, second to environmental issues and the one which the governemt clearly has the potential for direct control is the hiring and firing of teachers. I have said in a number of posts that my wife teaches in an inner city school. The stories that I hear about the quality and character of the teaching staff would make your hair stand on end. There are teachers that are drug addicts, who regularly fall asleep in the classroom, plus many other activities that, if portrayed in a movie, the audience would come out shaking their heads as to how unrealistic the portrayal of the conditions was - yet they would be true.</p>
<p>Kids regularly get passed from grade to grade without their meeting the requirements of the previous grade. Then, it is up to the next teacher to try to teach what should have been taught in first and second grade but wasn’t. </p>
<p>It’s not an issue of money - the district has one of the highest per child budgets in the nation and the teacher/student ratio would make most elite private schools envious. Recognizing that the costs are way out of line with the results, the state will next year cut some of the staff back. However, rather than being able to use this as a means to trim the dead and decaying wood, they will be forced by the unions to trim the recently hired, non-tenured teachers - the ones who still give a damn. The drug addicts and the sleepers will be back next year.</p>
<p>I’m not surprised. Inner-city schools are often a combination of daycare and prison. The goal’s not to teach, but keep the kids off the streets. Qualified – and sadly certified – educators aren’t necessary for that end.</p>
<p>“However, rather than being able to use this as a means to trim the dead and decaying wood, they will be forced by the unions to trim the recently hired, non-tenured teachers - the ones who still give a damn. The drug addicts and the sleepers will be back next year.”</p>
<p>that’s a pretty silly statement… the union protects many experienced well qualified educators whose only crime is moving up on the pay scale due to experience. While it is easy to say they have nothing to worry about, every teacher knows all they have to do is make a school board memeber mad, a prinicpal mad and all of a sudden they are a bad teacher after possibly decades of excellent work. Seen it happen alot. The union is there to counteract the power of the other side. So it will be a pushing match back and forth until someone comes up with a fool proof way to honestly and fairly evaluate an educator. Because quite simply two kids can sit side by side in a classroom and one can get an A and the other a D and they can have completely opposite opinions (and their parents) of that teacher. Because quite simply for most parents it is easier to blame the teacher.</p>
<p>midmo,
That’s “anecdotal”, not “antidotal”.</p>
<p>thanks for the spelling correction. Glad to see it makes you feel better. </p>
<p>and if it makes you feel better call me anything you like. ;)</p>
<p>“Those rule changes do not represent a threat to talented, dedicated teachers”</p>
<p>REALLY? What makes a talented dedicated teacher? What if you don’t personally like that talented dedicated teacher, is he/she still talented and dedicated? honest answer now… </p>
<p>Charter schools aren’t working in many states. Glad you support them, but most charter school end up operating under different standards or no standards at all in many states. The question that is never answered is if it is “good” for a charter to operate without many of the requirements publics operate under, why not throw those rules out entirely?</p>
<p>No, teacher’s unions are the devil. They don’t care to keep the teachers that give a damn, or even distinguish them. If they did, they wouldn’t disdain the idea of merit pay so much.</p>
<p>Bye the way all, I do know there’s bad teachers out there and they do get dealt with. There are also bad princpals and administrators and they get dealt with. 99% of the people in these positions do a great job. </p>
<p>The reason I come off so pro teacher here is because the vibe is always so anti teacher and anti union, I feel the need to offer a different opinion. </p>
<p>If you don’t like what I post, please discover a feature I found on this site the “buddy/ignore” switch. Please put me on your “ignore” list and I garantee you’ll never have to read a positive educator post again. Then you’ll always think everybody shares your opinion. </p>
Nevermind the 40 other excellent teachers they had along the way, when they showed up for class.</p>