Just In Case U Thought US Ed. was OK..
The_Non
5,691 Posts
An article to let you know you're wrong. I heard my city's school rate was at 50% or below, which I thought was horrible. I was wrong apparently. By KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 44 minutes ago 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.[/b]"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.[/b]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.[/b]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. ___ Associated Press writer Matt Reed in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report. ___
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They stopped doing it now, but for a couple years in a row they had people from the district office come to my school and try to explain how the drop out rate was only about 15-30% in Oakland Unified. When the teachers complained they tried to explain it off with all kinds of excuses like they switched schools, they left the districts for another, etc. The school I teach at is considered one of the top 3 of the 6 in the school district, yet each year we have about 600 freshmen and only around 200 graduates. We were told to believe that 400 students a year transfer to other schools, go to other districts, etc. just from our one school.
A study done a few years ago found that 70% of freshmen in Oakland Unified don't finish at the school they started at. Only 5% of black students that graduate have taken the classes necessary to even apply to a 4 year college, and for black male students its only 2%. This is in a district where 60% of the students are black. Hell, at one high school a couple years ago in Oakland, not a single student took the SAT!
And that study was only of the high school students, because you also have a huge drop out rate between Jr. High and High School.
Even at the "good schools" like Berkeley High that is always touted as one of the best in the country and "it's just like a community college" because you get to schedule your own classes BS, the drop out rate is huge for the black and Latino students.
Welcome to public education at an inner city near you.