This is written by a concerned and interested citizen, a one-time teacher who loves learning. It's also personal because of where I went to school and the
first class education I received there. That school system now has the
worst dropout rate of all major cities in America. How did that ever happen and why?
Disclaimer: I am no expert in educational research let alone the dropout problem. I have noticed it gets no attention to speak of and I believe it is of vital importance but dropouts don't vote. Youth are disenfranchised for a reason, but who looks out for them?
When is the last time you heard a politician mention the dropout rate? Can't remember, can you? Have you or anyone you know talked about it in recent memory? Does America care? Will it take care of itself? Recent reports and findings, document the problem. Next Diary: Pt. II The cost of the dropout problem, why it matters and programs that just might work.
Gorette's Diary:
Questions, not necessarily answered here:
Who is to blame for the awful dropout rates?
Is it the fault of teachers who are not good enough or cannot maintain discipline?
Why don't these kids want to graduate from high school?
What's the role of mass media and teen culture?
Do teens see the value of a high school education and diploma?
Do teens realize the economic implications of not having a diploma?
Are dropouts just lazy or stupid, unable to do the work and meet the standards?
Does the average citizen care? Do YOU care?
Do the parents care and do they try to keep their child in school?
Does our government care?
What do graduates have that dropouts lack?
What does this all mean for America's future in the world?
High school dropout rates are worst in big cities where the impact of difficult social, economic and environmental conditions is strongly felt. Some recent studies have provided more understanding about what can be done.
Figures dispute whether Detroit has the worst dropout rate or Cleveland, and what the true graduation figure is for Baltimore, recently estimated to be 39% though the city says it is 60 percent. There is a lot of controversy about how the dropout rate is calculated.
CLEVELAND CITY SCHOOLS - Mine!
"Among the fifty largest school districts in the country, Cleveland City had the lowest overall graduation rate with 28%, followed by Memphis, Milwaukee, and Columbus."
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/....
What was the dropout rate in Cleveland when I attended? Maybe 10% citywide? How do things change so much in 40 years? As I have written before, when I returned to my high school ten years after graduating as a substitute teacher, things had changed drastically. The sixties were a period of social upheaval in more ways than one and the students were unruly, and even locked me out of a classroom once!
The school I remember was well-run, and students did not seem to have a lot of trouble obeying the rules. We had excellent programs in the art and music. Our choral teacher was a supurb professional who made it a joy. We gave many performances over the year and won the city choral competition one of the years I was in it. There were great extra-curricular activities, a great sports program with well-attended football games. We had to take a civics class where we learned about the Constitution and how government operated, the start of my interest in politics and governance. Every year we took field trips to the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Museum of Art and sometimes to the theatre to see a Shakespeare play. So many lifetime interests and pleasures were nurtured there by excellent teachers who loved their subject matter and mostly loved teaching.
HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT FACTS & FIGURES: (see city study links throughout diary)
Worst graduation rates:
SC is the state with the lowest rates. (53% at most) http://www.thestate.com/...
Cleveland City Schools has the lowest rate for any city,
Detroit disputes this, and has one of the worst dropout rates
New York City figures indicate that 58.2% of students graduate in four years,
although the state puts that number at 43.5 %
Many come to high school with insufficient reading and math skills,
the shortcomings in the city's middle schools.
Just 30 % of students who eventually fall behind
begin H.S. with reading skills at or near proficient levels
Boys are more likely than girls to drop out
Black and Hispanic students are more likely to drop out
Baltimore Graduation rate is 39% (per recent study) to 60% (per city)
Philadelphia* 48 to 54% of ninth graders (2000-2005) graduated in four years.
61 to 63% have graduated in six years.
Remainder drop out with no diploma.
About 8,000 students officially dropped out in a given year.
5,000 are absent so much they are "near dropouts" in any given year.
Latino males have the lowest graduation rates 29 to 38%.
African American males have second lowest graduation rates.
Latino females, and African American females have next lowest rates.
Female students graduate on time at higher rates;
gender gap was nearly 15% -- 2000-2003.
Students at large neighborhood high schools in low-income areas
are much more likely to drop out
than students attending magnet or vocational schools.
Dropping out happens over time, not suddenly.
Red Flags for eighth graders --75% of whom will drop out:
they attend school less than 80% of the time and
they also fail either English or math.
20 percent of those at-risk eighth graders in study
stopped attending by the end of ninth grade and
more than half never made it beyond 10th grade.*2
At-risk students need help in math or english, if failing.
Affluent suburban schools offer more help to at-risk students.
Students bring issues with them from middle school and need
help before arriving at high school.
More money is needed for programs to keep students in school.
* Philadelphia findings were similar to the results of other recent studies that tracked individual students in Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston.
*2 These dropout predictors may apply to students at large, but particularly to those from urban districts with large numbers of low-income students.
New York City. http://www.nytimes.com/...
The first comprehensive look at New York City's failing students has found that nearly 140,000 people from ages 16 to 21 have either dropped out of high school (68k) or are already so far behind that they are unlikely to graduate (70k). snip...the study was unique in its attempt to pinpoint who falls behind; when in their academic careers it happens; and which schools do a better job of getting students back on track.
The study found that students who fall behind in the number of credits they are expected to accumulate have a difficult time getting back on track at traditional high schools.
Of the class of 2003's dropouts, the study found that 93 percent fell behind in their credits at some point, By contrast, only 19 percent of those who graduated had fallen significantly behind in their credits at any point.
SOUTH CAROLINA's http://www.thestate.com/... worst state dropout rate in the nation (53% or lower) cannot be explained in a recent study comparing students levels of poverty, teenage pregnancy rates, and other conditions to those in other states. The Monitor Group also took into account poverty, parents’ education, single-parent families, racial mix and absenteeism — all factors that could be compared state-to-state — to gauge how South Carolina’s graduation measured up nationally. With a big push on education in the past decade elementary and middle schools have made gains, but SAT rankings are still among the lowest.
MISCELLANEOUS STATS. Why should government care about our DROPOUT RATES? http://www.manhattan-institute.org/...
The highest rate of graduation among African-American students was 71% in West Virginia, followed by Massachusetts, Arkansas, and New Jersey. The highest rate of graduation among Latino students was 82% in Montana, followed by Louisiana, Maryland, and Hawaii.
Fairfax County, VA had the highest overall graduation rate among the districts with 87%, followed by Montgomery County, MD, Albuquerque and Boston.
Cleveland City (with the highest dropout rate) also had the lowest graduation rate among Latino students, followed by Georgia’s Dekalb, Gwinnett, and Cobb counties. Less than 50% of African-American students graduated in fifteen of forty-five districts for which there was sufficient data, and less than 50% of Latino students graduated in twenty-one of thirty-six districts for which there was sufficient data.
Talk to someone today about our dropouts. See Part II coming up this week.
Other education diaries by Gorette:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...