Posted on 04/14/2008 6:50:39 AM PDT by Reaganesque
Recently, Collin Powell's new group, America's Promise Alliance, issued a report (the link to it is at the bottom center of their home page.) from the EPE Research Center listing the large cities in this country which had the worst graduation rates. Shockingly, many of our biggest cities have graduation rates of less than 50% with the worst, Detroit, graduating only 25% of it's high schoolers.
Given the perception that most cities are liberal leaning at best, I decided to see if there was any correlation between a city's liberalism and the results from this graduation rate study. Yes, I am a Conservative and am therefore had an ulterior motive however, the resulting numbers I found were sufficiently lopsided that, to me anyway, they would seem to be indicative of a possible correlation. I make no claim that this is the most scientific study ever but at the very least, I believe, it merits further consideration.
The worst 20 graduation rates, on the list are as follows:
1. Detroit, MI...24.9%
2. Indianapolis, IN...30.5
3. Cleveland, OH...34.1
4. Baltimore, MD...34.6
5. Columbus, OH...40.9
6. Minneapolis, MN...43.7
7. Dallas, TX...44.4
8. New York, NY....45.2
9. Los Angeles, CA...45.3
10. Oakland, CA...45.6
11. Kansas City, KS...45.7
12. Atlanta, GA...46.0
13. Milwaukee, WI...46.1
14. Denver, CO...46.3
15. Oklahoma City, OK...47.5
16. Miami, FL...49.0
17. Philadelphia, PA...49.6
18. Jacksonville, FL...50.2
19. Tulsa, OK...50.6
20. Chicago, IL...51.5
In 2005, a research group in San Fransisco, The Bay Area Center For Voting Research, ranked the nations cities from most to least Liberal. (For a complete list click here.) The list is 236 cities long and runs from most Liberal to least Liberal. For the sake of comparison, I divided the list into three groups of 79 cities; the three representing the most Liberal, "Moderate" and least Liberal. The top twenty Liberal cities, according to this list are:
1. Detroit, Michigan
2. Gary, Indiana
3. Berkeley, California
4. Washington, D.C.
5. Oakland, California
6. Inglewood, California
7. Newark, New Jersey
8. Cambridge, Massachusetts
9. San Francisco, California
10. Flint, Michigan
11. Cleveland, Ohio
12. Hartford, Connecticut
13. Paterson, New Jersey
14. Baltimore, Maryland
15. New Haven, Connecticut
16. Seattle, Washington
17. Chicago, Illinois
18. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
19. Birmingham, Alabama
20. St. Louis, Missouri
The first and most obvious similarity between the two lists is that Detroit is number one on both lists. Detroit has been considered a "Liberal" city since the early 1930s. Baltimore has been run by Liberals since 1967. Indeed, most of the cities on the "Most Liberal List" have been run by Liberals for the last 30-40 years or more.
Looking deeper into the comparison, I found that of the 20 worst cities for graduation rates, 70% of them (14 out of 20) are identified on the "Most Liberal Cities List" as Liberal. Of the remaining six cities, four fell into the "Moderate" category and the other four were considered "Least Liberal."
With all this said, it cannot be said that Liberalism is the sole, determining factor in these poor graduation rates in big cities. However, given the disproportionate representation of Liberal cities on this list, it would at least appear to be a contributing one. At the very least, more study should be done regarding this possible link. Surely the children of our biggest cities and their parents deserve to know if this is the case.
But the students have self esteem.
The correlation between the two lists is the percent minority population which is a strong indicator of both high drop out rates and one party (Democrat) rule. You could make it more precise if you found out the percent of minority enrollment in the public schools which can often be quite higher than the overall percent of the population.
And we ALL know that is the most important thing, right?
Living all over the nation, teaching for now 47 years, the problem is and always has been: liberalism. If the electorate keeps electing liberal Dems, they will get even worse scores, more dependency, more govt. socialism, more national security pacifism, more multi-culturalism and more tax hikes. Yet the populace keeps electing these dopes because they want security from the womb to the grave and it is killing our free enterprise system, our cultural heritage from the Founders, and our superior military.
The current state of Native American living on reservations and put there by certainly not liberals.
That’s something I hadn’t thought of, but I believe I can still justify my position.
The current state of ANY impoverished person in America IS due to leftist policies designed to maintain their victimhood over their success.
There is nothing standing in anyone’s way to success today except for the entitlement or victimhood mentality. And this mentality IS promoted by leftist policies.
Now, as to who put them on the reservations, I won’t delve into that, but the key phrase is CURRENT STATE.
I think they are a special case, effectively placed in internment camps for 120 years.
“Golllly I am so proud to be from Indianapolis.”
I live just south of you and do everything I can to stay out of Indy. It’s also unsafe.
In “internment camps” by definition would mean that they were being kept there through legal and forceful measures.
I had many NA people at my university classes, so I don’t think that’s the case.
People make choices, and staying on the res is a choice.
I’m finding it interesting that yours is the only reply I got to my challenge.
I will take your premise one step further.Most of those high school dropouts don’t even vote period.
Of course,if they did it would be for liberal Democrats but nearly all the ones I have met “just want to get my hustle on”and they think that politics is completely irrelevant to their lives.
Not a bad idea.
Like New Orleans. Worked out just great for them, didn't it?
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