Cities with the worst graduation rates

[audtatious]

1. Detroit, MI...24.9%2. Indianapolis, IN...30.53. Cleveland, OH...34.14. Baltimore, MD...34.65. Columbus, OH...40.96. Minneapolis, MN...43.77. Dallas, TX...44.48. New York, NY....45.29. Los Angeles, CA...45.310. Oakland, CA...45.611. Kansas City, KS...45.712. Atlanta, GA...46.013. Milwaukee, WI...46.114. Denver, CO...46.315. Oklahoma City, OK...47.516. Miami, FL...49.017. Philadelphia, PA...49.618. Jacksonville, FL...50.219. Tulsa, OK...50.620. Chicago, IL...51.5

Looks like we need to pay more in taxes to help pay for the additional welfare burdens

[rn79870]

This is truly amazing considering the apparent requirements for graduation, which in many areas is nothing more than attending. I don't know how many graduates/drop outs possess any math skills, but I've seen examples of their grammatical skills many times on the inet. I can't understand why so many young people have absolutely no motivation or any insight as to where their life is heading.

I receive email from a military related web site and I've seen many comments in their messages about the difficulty of so many inner city youth who just can't score a passing grade on the ASVAB. That isn't upper division stuff either. The Army will take someone with (I believe) a score of 19 (out of about 60+/-) The scores gradually increases until you get to the Coast Guard, which requires something in the mid 40's.

[audtatious]

I find it interesting that the "liberal way" of education seems to be to "dumb it down" in order for stupid people to graduate (at the expense of those who work hard to learn) yet there is still a decline in graduation.

The question is, what to do about it.

[Cold_Zero]

1. Detroit, MI...24.9%2. Indianapolis, IN...30.5

At least we are NOT as bad as Detroit. Kinda wished we beaten Cleveland as well. Oh well something to shoot for. What I don't understand is if all the Indianapolis Township Schools are factored into the graduation rate. There are some nice schools in Wayne, Perry, Franklin and Lawrence Townships that would probably bolster the graduation rate of Indianapolis Public Schools.

[rn79870]

The Great State of California instituted a Math/English proficiency test that a 12th grader must pass prior to graduation. No pass no graduate. This only increased the number of those not receiving diplomas.

CA started a state lottery many years ago. The profits of the lottery were to go to education. What a windfall, better education due to more funding. Didn't take the state long to see that they could cut funding for education, and the lottery funds would replace the state funds. Now there is too little money for education and they are laying off teachers.

Until education funding becomes a much higher priority, and students can be placed in classes appropriate for their skills (or lack thereof) nothing is going to change. Teachers don't teach to the lesser students, they structure their lessons towards the upper end. There needs to be classes for gifted and the "special skills" students.

No one sees that this is one of those things that we'll pay for now, or we'll pay for later. None of this usurps the students need to do the work instead of looking for the quick way out. It's far too easy to survive in America without producing.

[Sil40_Mayhem]

Like charity, failure also begins at home. No parental involvement or interest in the child's education, no drive to be educated.

What to do about it? It's hard to say. We have to determine who's at fault, first. Is it the school system? Unmotivated teachers, poorly funded programs, insufficient materials? Is it the parents, not giving a crap about their kids and taking no interest in their learning? Is it rap music/culture, teaching the children that school is for fools and not to respect authority of any kind? Is it solar flares? The boogeyman? Blame Canada (TV watchers, I know you got this one)?

Before any worthwhile remedy can be suggested, we must first get to the root of the problem. Throwing money at a problem it can't fix... well, you get the idea. Can we take away rights (like voting, gun ownership, etc) from those who do not possess a high school diploma, as they would have to be at least 18 to have these anyway? In other words, attack the Constitution? Do we just trim the fat and cut the non-productive kids and divert the resources that would have been wasted on them to the kids who would actually benefit from such? Graduation rates go up, but that's just sweeping the others under the carpet. Can we impose fines and penalties to the parents of children who repeatedly disrupt the educational process/underperform in order to get their attention?

I don't think I have an answer; just more questions. I firmly believe that the condition of the homes from which these kids come are directly reflected in their productivity (or lack thereof) in school. Idealistically speaking, if we fix the jacked-up homes, we fix the schools. For now, that's about as possible as alchemy.

[audtatious]

Those who never learned can't teach. Blame the parents? How many of the parents in those neighborhoods also graduated and have a clue?

I honestly do not understand where the school systems have gone other than away from reading, writing and arithmetics. I am constantly having to help my 6th-grade step daughter with her math and it seems the stuff she is working on is stuff I didn't do until 8th grade.

[Cold_Zero]

This subject is where I disagree with my Republican friends and counterparts. Andy, Matt and I live in a state were the Republicans find it too important to take down the ISTA/NEA teachers unions by sabotaging their ability to collective bargain. Education should be less about Politics and taking down your opponents "Power Base" and more about doing what is right and educating children! Don't get me wrong the Democrats in the State of Indiana are in the pockets of ISTA/NEA and they go after the Republican's power base by attacking School Vouchers. I also fundamentally disagree with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. While I think that accurate measurements of children's progress and accountability are good things, the way that NCLB and ultimate the State of Indiana administrates these is backwards. Our kids spend more time preparing and taking the ISTEP (standardized state test) than they do learning. One of the reasons why my wife and I are looking at private schooling for our daughter. And no, I will not ask for a handout from the government to get a voucher to send my child outside the school system. Bud

[Sil40_Mayhem]

But that's exactly my point. There you are helping your child with homework, and taking an interest in ensuring it gets done. Being uneducated (or even undereducated), to me, is not an excuse from making sure your child is attempting to do something in school. Even if you can't do the work yourself, you can still make sure it gets done. You can also make an effort to meet with your child's teacher if they are struggling with a subject and you can't assist, thereby attempting to find the help they need. An example: my grandfather grew up sharecropping in rural South Carolina. By the third grade, he had to leave school to help his family work the fields. He raised 14 children (11 of his own, plus three he took in), all of which earned high school diplomas. Nearly half of those went on to earn a bachelor's degree. He couldn't have possibly helped them with their schoolwork as kids, but he could make sure they did it.

It's one thing to have a limited capability. It's an entirely different matter when you don't care enough to put forth the effort. You, you're putting forth that effort (and it is commendable). I highly doubt the same is true in the majority of homes that contribute to these staggeringly low, too-low-for-a-non-third-world-country graduation rates.

As a side note, I remember taking the baseline functional skills tests that were a requirement for graduation (meaning credits or no credits, you don't pass, you don't graduate). They were at an eighth- or ninth grade level.

[Cold_Zero]

CA started a state lottery many years ago. The profits of the lottery were to go to education. What a windfall, better education due to more funding. Didn't take the state long to see that they could cut funding for education, and the lottery funds would replace the state funds. Now there is too little money for education and they are laying off teachers.

Indiana did the same thing. Didn't take long for the windfall profits from the Lottery to be ear marked to something else and years later the State had an Oh **** moment when they realized that the Lottery proceedes were NOT going to education. Our great State also spent all of the Teacher Retirement Fund on other projects and put a bit IOU in the fund. Then we the state came on hard times and again we had another OH **** moment. Teachers retiring and they dont get the money the saved for. I believe MyManMitch [/campaign slogan] has payed the Retirement Fund back.

[smockers83]

What really needs to happen is to do away with standardized testing in school districts and reallocate money to the inner city schools from the suburban schools. Detroit's funding program is so screwed up the state has taken over it a couple of times, not sure if they still are in control. And a lot of it has to do with the teachers--all the good teachers go to the good schools because they get paid more. If you put a good, motivating teacher into an inner city school, the performance levels skyrocket. It's science (Anchorman).

[rn79870]

Those who never learned can't teach. Blame the parents? How many of the parents in those neighborhoods also graduated and have a clue?

One of my first jobs was working for the S.D. County Dept. of Public Welfare. At first I worked in the medical needy division, and all I did was qualify medically needy people for welfare assistance with their medical expenses. I had empathy for people that worked all their life and had a heart attack and lost everything.

Then I got transferred to the AFDC side. (aid to families with dependent children). I hated it. I HATED IT. The final straw was one busier than normal day when a family dropped in without an appointment, wanting to see if their food stamps could be increased. This family consisted of a Grandpa, Grandma, a severely retarded 24 year old daughter who had 3 kids and another on the way. Of course, no one knew who any of the fathers were. As it turned out, that family was drawing, tax free, over 2 times what I was netting each month. I wasn’t sympathetic with their request.

That was my last day at the Welfare Department. (Seriously, I never went back, scratch one reference)

The point to this is that society makes it far, far too easy for people to survive sucking on the public boob. There has been some reform since that day, but not enough.

When the child grows up never seeing a parent leave for work or come home 9 hours later, tired from work, that child never develops a work ethic. Without that ethic, how do you expect them to succeed in school. They never develop a sense of accomplishment that drives them to finish a difficult task, like an education. It is a circle of failure that is too common in the inner city.

Many school drop outs remain home, have kids to increase their monthly income. The hard part of their day is deciding whether to watch Jerry Springer or take a nap.

Sometimes, failure is programmed by circumstance, coupled with generations of ignorance regarding the causes and cures of this cycle. The cure will come when the cycle is broken, when the person in jeopardy learns the value of doing for yourself and the rewards of working for something.

/end rant.

[Cold_Zero]

But that's exactly my point. There you are helping your child with homework, and taking an interest in ensuring it gets done. Being uneducated (or even undereducated), to me, is not an excuse from making sure your child is attempting to do something in school. Even if you can't do the work yourself, you can still make sure it gets done. You can also make an effort to meet with your child's teacher if they are struggling with a subject and you can't assist, thereby attempting to find the help they need. An example: my grandfather grew up sharecropping in rural South Carolina. By the third grade, he had to leave school to help his family work the fields. He raised 14 children (11 of his own, plus three he took in), all of which earned high school diplomas. Nearly half of those went on to earn a bachelor's degree. He couldn't have possibly helped them with their schoolwork as kids, but he could make sure they did it.

It's one thing to have a limited capability. It's an entirely different matter when you don't care enough to put forth the effort. You, you're putting forth that effort (and it is commendable). I highly doubt the same is true in the majority of homes that contribute to these staggeringly low, too-low-for-a-non-third-world-country graduation rates.

As a side note, I remember taking the baseline functional skills tests that were a requirement for graduation (meaning credits or no credits, you don't pass, you don't graduate). They were at an eighth- or ninth grade level.

I think the parent's responsibility in this process transcends capability. My wife works in the #2 school system in Matt's list. The crap that parents pull astounds me and can only be described as Sabotaging their children's education. Some of the highlights:1. Kids come to school tired and sleep through classes because they were either up well past 10pm or worse were out past 10pm.2. Within a school year a lot of kids move multiple and typically have 1-2 different schools than the one they started from. My wife has had kids that have been to 3 different schools within the school year. We call them boomerang kids because they start in her school, get pulled out and tossed around to different schools and end right back at the school they started at. My parents thought it was bad that we had 1 school ever 4 years because my dad was in the Army and we moved a lot. 3. A large amount of the kids are being raised by non parents. My wife's school has a lot of Grandparents or Aunts/Uncles raising the kids. And a lot of time, by no fault of their own the guardians dont have the ability (physically or financially) to raise them properly. Now these are extreme cases, but I does happen a lot more than in the burbs.4. Parents actively instruct their kids to not listen to the teachers when they are teaching or disciplining them. This is out right insubordination and really sets the kids up to fail later in life. The kids grow up thinking they don’t have to listen to Authority figures like Cops, Judges, Bosses and so on.

[ishkabibble]

Wow, I thought D.C. would be number 1, but we're not even in the top 20!

[Cold_Zero]

Wow, I thought D.C. would be number 1, but we're not even in the top 20!

Maybe because the standards in DC schools are so low? j/k DC Metro doesn't have near the population that these other cities do. So I would think that might help their statistics.

[ishkabibble]

Maybe because the standards in DC schools are so low? j/k DC Metro doesn't have near the population that these other cities do. So I would think that might help their statistics.

Could be. D.C. in general seems fine with mediocrity as a goal for whatever. But more likely it is the bipolarness of the D.C. school system - the schools are either stellar or complete failures, so one offsets the other.

Population and demographics vary wildly when you start talking "metro" vs. "proper". D.C. metro has ~4.5 million people, D.C. proper has ~600k. Same deal for many other cities like Minneapolis (which I believe is 2.5 million vs. 300k).

[Cold_Zero]

I was referring just to the city and not to Maryland or Virginia.

I remember last summer when we were in Columbia Maryland, I was watching the news before bed and they were going on and on about one of the High Schools that had broken doors and the bums would sleep in the hallways. I thought to myself, at least IPS doesnt have that problem.

[ishkabibble]

That's fine. I was pointing out how statistics can change drastically depending on the definition of a "city". Some cities like Houston are immense because they appropriate the surrounding communities into the city "proper" as the city grows. Others like Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, D.C., do not.

[Cold_Zero]

I see how you are... trying to get credit for claiming PG County schools to lower the graduation rates to put DC at the top of the list....[/joking]

True, Houston, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Chicago all have huge metropolitan areas. I am sure that only the school systems inside the city proper were considered. Many of these cities have Metropolian areas, like DC that strattle multiple states. But the reason why I asked the question about Indianapolis is that we are under a Unigov system. Which means that even though the townships are within city limits, they have totally separate schools and the funding does not come from the city.

[Sil40_Mayhem]

^ That was really low, man. Leave PG County out of this.

Who am I kidding, growing up in PG County is one of the main reasons I'm raising my family in NC.

[BMAR240SX]

Damn NY made the top ten

[Cold_Zero]

^ That was really low, man. Leave PG County out of this.

Who am I kidding, growing up in PG County is one of the main reasons I'm raising my family in NC.

I guess I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks! I grew up in Prince William County. Not sure what county Virginia Beach is in, but I grew up there too.

[Sil40_Mayhem]

That's cool. My brother (currently deployed to Bahrain) lives near VA Beach. Lucky dog...

[nismofly]

this is why i dont know a single person here at my school that graduated from NYC public schools, all went to private schools in one way or another

[pinkfishtacoyum]

I myself go to a high school that is very diverse and i think i may have a valuable input or observation. In my school, kids are way too concerned with social status. Those who are at the top of the social status chain are truly dumb and have no future anyway, so they spend their time trying to be cool. Those who are truly smart try to follow suit to be cool, and so it tumbles down to people in class trying harder to be cool then to succeed. In Michigan there is also a lot of " there are no jobs here anyway, whats the use of going to college?" and that is totally wrong.

[krimsonviper]

I myself go to a high school that is very diverse and i think i may have a valuable input or observation. In my school, kids are way too concerned with social status. Those who are at the top of the social status chain are truly dumb and have no future anyway, so they spend their time trying to be cool. Those who are truly smart try to follow suit to be cool, and so it tumbles down to people in class trying harder to be cool then to succeed. In Michigan there is also a lot of " there are no jobs here anyway, whats the use of going to college?" and that is totally wrong.

Actually, my experience is quite the opposite. The smart kids are also popular because they are witty and have charisma, while the failure depend on the bad side of society to make their money

People who drop out are the people who view it as a plus, because they have other ways to get their money; they steal, sell drugs, or get jobs that dont require high education. It is easy to be lazy, and school does seem like a giant waste of time. I sometimes view it as a job w/o pay or benefits, but in order to have ALOT of money you have to go to school, which is what drop outs dont understand, or the will at a later date and go for their GED.

Failure, is contagious. Others see it and feel it and group together and never push each other to do better. Plus, think about it, poor people can have alot of fun in the freedom of not have anything really important to do other than just to hang out. I know i did.

[nismofly]

I myself go to a high school that is very diverse and i think i may have a valuable input or observation. In my school, kids are way too concerned with social status. Those who are at the top of the social status chain are truly dumb and have no future anyway, so they spend their time trying to be cool. Those who are truly smart try to follow suit to be cool, and so it tumbles down to people in class trying harder to be cool then to succeed. In Michigan there is also a lot of " there are no jobs here anyway, whats the use of going to college?" and that is totally wrong.

A- michigan is not the only state in the country, you might inform people of this

B- in my experience the people who are smart enough to do well in college are also people high on social scale due to personality, as long as you have a clue socially its really not difficult...like Absolushun said a good personality can be derived from intelligence

plus high school is a bunch of drama and sob stories anyway, who wants to deal with that ****, just put up with it, get into a good school, all those kids will either not get into school or will only care about parties and go to WVU or Uwiconsin or something along those lines and youll have a good time and get a good education and go on with life

[Cold_Zero]

A- michigan is not the only state in the country, you might inform people of this

Michigan isnt the only state in the country loosing or have lost its manufacturing jobs. Indiana has been hit hard with this as has most of the midwest. But going back to pink's point, loosing manufacturing jobs doesnt mean that there are no jobs. A lot of the manufacturing jobs in Indiana are being replaced with bioindustrial and other types of jobs.

[nismofly]

who says you have to go to school for manufacturing or anything, i guarantee i could work in michigan or indiana just as easily as i could in new york, in fact ive considered indianapolis

and either way, you dont have to stay up there, why not move to texas or something, thats the point i was implying when i said that

[Cold_Zero]

That was kind of my point. I think there are "no job" because it is a self fufilling prophecy.