Well, I guess Detroit public schools don't have to worry about overcrowding

[bluestateguy]

They all just drop out. Or most of them do, anyway.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-06-20-dropout-rates_x.htm

Big-city schools struggle with graduation rates
Updated 6/20/2006 11:26 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions |

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Students in a handful of big-city school districts have a less than 50-50 chance of graduating from high school with their peers, and a few cities graduate far fewer than half each spring, according to research released on Tuesday.
Fourteen urban school districts have on-time graduation rates lower than 50%; they include Detroit, Baltimore, New York, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Denver and Houston.

cut

While the basic finding that the nation's overall graduation rate is about 70% is not new, the study suggests that graduation rates are much lower than previously reported in many states. It also could bring the dropout debate to the local level, because it allows anyone with Internet access to view with unprecedented detail data on the nation's 12,000 school districts.

Among the nation's 50 largest districts, the study finds, three graduate fewer than 40%: Detroit (21.7%), Baltimore (38.5%) and New York City (38.9%).

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Part of the problem

is the kids are so transient. I teach in a large urban district and we just talked about this yesterday in a staff meeting. If a kid moves out of our district, he is counted as a dropout. Even if he enrolls in another district, he is counted as a dropout. So we really don't know what our dropout rate is unless we track the kids after they leave our district. And that is not always easy to do.

[PassingFair]

7. With the foreclosure rates being what they are....

this would explain the crazy "drop-out" numbers.
Bad enough as they are!

[Yupster]

9. When I taught, we had the opposite problem

We reported a very low drop-out rate. Yet the senior class was always half the size of the freshman class, year after year.

The reason was that we only counted a kid as a drop-out if he came into the office and said he was dropping out. If a kid just didn't come back in September for his junior year, he wasn't considered a drop-out. That was how most of the drop-outs occured.

The administration's explanation was that how were they to know the kid was a drop-out? He could have moved or anything else, so no drop-out unless it was recorded as such.

I guess each district is different, but that tells us all to take drop-out statistics with lots of grains of salt.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. Actually we were told this is the rule now under NCLB

You know, that law that is supposed to help kids. :sarcasm:

[charlie]

11. I hope that's the case

A real three-quarters dropout rate is frightening.

[rucky]

14. That's a problem in and of itself. They never really settle in.

What's the point, if you're probably going to move back with auntie in a couple months?

[PDJane]

2. How can this happen?

Why does this happen?

In Ontario, the dropout rate for high-school students is below 10%, and falling (although more young men than young women drop out; in some places, 7 of 10 early school-leavers are male). We are always putting programs in place to reach these young people; it is obvious that we are succeeding, at least to a point.

This is a supreme failure of your school system.

[Fading Captain]

8. It's about way more than school systems

It's about letting cities dies.
It's about the capitalist nature that finds it cheaper to build on new land than to invest in revamping.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. No it's a funny way to track statistics

[Bozita]

3. I thought Houston didn't have dropouts.

One of Bushco's earlier lies.

[Cerridwen]

4. I hear the "we need to privatize schools" chant coming from the distance...

far, far to my right I hear the chant getting closer and closer.

Set in place a system for the common good. Starve it of any resources or funds. Strangle it in red-tape meant to do nothing productive. Look at the inevitable results. Call it a failure. Privatize it. Profits for all...well, all of those who count, anyway.

[tomreedtoon]

5. I think the kids have given up, and who can blame them?

What's the point of continuing on to college if you're still just going to be flipping burgers?

The people who've made it in this country are outright criminals. And can you imagine someone like Bush honestly telling the "childrens" to stay in school?

We older folks can mourn the death of hope. But the kids in school now have grown up completely devoid of hope.

[seriousstan]

6. And your solution is??? Give up? Surrender?

[tomreedtoon]

16. That's what the kids have learned...from Democrats.

Look at what happens when Democrats try to change anything imposed on them by the Bushies. The second Hannity or Coulter says anything, they blush, they apologize even if they haven't done anything wrong, they backpedal, they reverse positions. Barack Obama is now going to wear a whole bunch of flag pins, three or four on any coat he wears, because he was shamed into doing so. He's giving up.

What lessons has our wonderful educational establishment taught kids? Don't protest. Don't get angry, because anger is evil. Your beliefs must change in the face of what the group tells you. To question authority means you must be shamed, punished, beaten. Sit down, shut up and take the proficiency test, and here are the answers you must fill in.

Sure stopped riots and protests in school, didn't it? It also created a generation that has given up, that can't even think of opposing the existing order, that has lost their imaginations and their courage. There is no better world, so if the world sucks, so do you.

[knitter4democracy]

10. Detroit is in trouble, yes, but it's not dead yet.

Detroit's been dying for decades. The city government is full of cronyism and hidden deals and all sorts of nastiness, and the school board's been accused of similar stuff. I have a friend from high school whose husband teaches there, and I ran into some Detroit teachers at the Dem state convention a year ago--they are dedicated, wonderful people doing their darndest against all odds.

Kids are transitory, especially poor kids. Often, there's no reading material of any kind in the home. Often, moms and dads are working two and three jobs and have to leave school-aged kids home alone for hours on end. These kids then have to fend for themselves, and that's not easy for them to do.

Honestly, Michigan in general is in deep trouble. By any measure, we're in a depression, not a recession, and our cities are slowly dying. Heck, our state is losing all sorts of citizens, more and more every year. The jobs got sent south, and people need jobs to survive. It's not just Detroit that's hurting.

[WinkyDink]

15. Jeez. You'd think thet'd stay just for the school dances!

[tomreedtoon]

17. Try going to the dance without a date. Or money.

Seriously, do you think everybody goes to school social events? Many people don't. Why be embarassed? Why be pointed out as the loser? You get mocked all day in school, by teachers and students. Why get mocked outside of it?

You have obviously forgotten what it feels like to be a teenager. I never will.