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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Detroit Schools: 75% Dropout Rate

The Detroit News has a short article today on the dropout rate of Detroit Public Schools students. The article states that a report from Education Week, a weekly education newspaper, has done a study showing that Detroit's dropout rate is 75%. You can view the report's web page by clicking here.

However, the bureaucrats at Detroit Public Schools are going ape because they say the numbers are "totally erroneous." They say that they report a graduation rate of 67% to the state. So who is telling the truth? They both are. The difference is that Michigan school districts are only required to report the graduation rate of current seniors. In other words, they calculate it by taking the number of students who graduate from the 12th grade and dividing it by the number of students who started the 12th grade that year. The Education Week report takes the more realistic approach of taking the number of students who actually graduate from the 12th grade and divide it by the number who started the 9th grade. You see, many of the students who drop out do so before the 12th grade. Detroit Public Schools is misleading the public, as is the state of Michigan, by only reporting graduation rates of 12th graders.

So, we see that Detroit Public Schools is a failure by every definition of the word, yet they are still in business. Does anyone wonder why the enrollment at charter schools in Detroit is skyrocketing? Tens of thousands of students are stuck in a utter dismal failure of a school district because the cap on charter schools has been reached. Our governor continues to pander to the teachers unions and refuse to support lifting the cap. Meanwhile, another generation of kids is being denied an education, and consequently is comdemned to continue the cycle of poverty, crime, drugs, etc.

How about Grand Rapids Public Schools? The dropout rate at GRPS is slightly better - 52.8% of GRPS students actually graduate. Even more interestingly, the graduation rate of Godfrey Lee Public Schools (Wyoming) is only 37.8% and 49.1% in Kelloggsville Public Schools.The highest graduation rates in the area are at East Grand Rapids Public Schools (98.1%) and Forest Hills (97.9%). Unfortunately, charter schools are not listed in this report, but we do know that Black River Public School, a charter K-12 school in Holland, is ranked as the #2 school in the entire state by Newsweek.

10 comments:

  1. it will be a real dream come true when the whole damn education system is finally privatized

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  2. I very happy that the collapse of Detroit's civic society is a very public affair. Shame sometimes brings change. I did a report on this in college and was shocked to find 60%+ of students (using the logical 9th to 12th grade methodology as this recent study) weren't graduating or ...er couldn't be tracked (sigh). Even taking into consideration the flight of the black middle class and their children over the last 20 yrs. the stats were unacceptable to me even then. My friends mearly shrugged the impeding disater off back then but even I am shocked by this plummet to absolute failure.

    I welcome comments linking/repost of your article to website link I provided

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  3. I wonder if they considered the kids who left for other districts or charter schools when calculating this number. It seems that if you simply divide the number of graduates by the number of freshmen on day one that the number would come out skewed.

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  4. [...] out rates are also abysmal. Only one in four students graduate from High School in Detroit. From Grand Rapids Pundit: The Detroit News has a short article today on the dropout rate of Detroit Public Schools [...]

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  5. [...] #1 in its index of America's Most Miserable Cities. 75% of students entering 9th grade in Detroit never graduate from High School. Only 67% who make it to their senior year graduate. The FBI is investigating [...]

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  6. [...] of students entering 9th grade in Detroit never graduate from High School. Only 67% who make it to their senior year [...]

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  7. I am cool with citing our public education problems, and we need to be open to discussing it. However, if one is to critique, one must at least not make mathematical errors in one's argument. The direct quote above is:
    "graduation rate of current seniors. In other words, they calculate it by taking the number of students who start the 12th grade and dividing it by the number of students who graduate that year. The Education Week report takes the more realistic approach of taking the number of students to start the 9th grade and dividing that into the number who actually graduate in the 12th grade."
    If you are to actually make the calculation following the blogger's formulas, you will get numbers greater than 1. And the blogger did it TWICE. This is the elephant in the room, that even those who graduate high school can't do math.

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  8. Very sorry. Please accept my apologies for incorrectly describing the equation. It has been corrected.

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  9. [...] the best idea they have is to downsize the city by converting empty lots into farmland.  With a 75% dropout rate in their schools and yes, Virginia, blatant corruption and low morals in high places, [...]

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  10. [...] and the best idea they have is to downsize the city by converting empty lots into farmland. With a 75% dropout rate in their schools and yes, Virginia, blatant corruption and low morals in high places, a collapsing [...]

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