Posted on 03/31/2008 9:57:39 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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 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.
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.
___
Associated Press writer Matt Reed in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.
America’s Promise Alliance:
http://www.americaspromise.org/
Ahh - dare I mention illegals?
That’s part of it. Education also requires federal money which it is not getting. America is increasingly becoming higher-education-based: Our colleges and universities are the best in the world, no doubt. Our high schools...not so much.
93% of the money for schools come from state and local sources, not the federal government.
Money is not the problem. The worst schools in America are in the District of Columbia which spends over $11,000 per student per year, the highest in America.
The education industry is in a greater freefall than the mortgage industry, and no one gives a damn - the schools, the politicians, the parents. Achievement is something recognized in the freak show characters on American Idol, not the few academic superstars.
Universities are a mere shadow of their past status. Except for the few students in the scientific disciplines, they turn out uneducated children with an entitlement attitude.
I wish I could be as confident as you, but I’ve seen too much. Have you ever tried to hire one of these “college graduates”?
“Our high schools...not so much.”
You’re quite kind. Our high schools and secondary schools are roaring failures. I went to one of the better ones in my state, and we were still a good semester to a year and a half behind schools in France and England when I studied abroad.
I don’t know how we’re supposed to stay the most economically powerful nation on earth when we can’t even produce future generations who can do something as simple as read or maintain the discipline to do something so fundamental as finishing high school.
And funny, these “bright scholars” are the ones going out into the world and producing all the kids—not the people who would actually care for their kids and ensure their future success.
I recall seeing an exam required for graduation by kids in the 8th grade when my grandfather was in school. I took it to high school with me and showed it around. Students were totally shocked by the exam. Only about 50% of my friends could pass the test. These people were in Honors and were very bright. They were far brighter in math and science but backwards on everything else. Sad, but true.
Looks to me like America has been dumbed down generation by generation. Not to worry. In a few years it will not matter anyway.
Yea sure, then only you will be the smartest!
LOL
Report: Morons in Cities will Continue to Vote Democrat: Inability to Comprehend Basic Economics or Logic Cited
Public school systems are practically designed not to work.
The dumbing down of America is in full throttle.
They are UNION Schools.
They will always fail.
Close ALL public schools give us vouchers.
A gubermint program is NEVER a failure, it’s just “underfunded”.
Throw in gang mentality and we've got a winner. Tax dollars don't mean anything if the student doesn't come from a family that values an education.
One cannot mill good lumber from bad timber.
- John
Yeah I have, most of them are pretty useless, you’re right
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