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Adding Wisdom to Knowledge.
Higher Education
Christian Life
Educators Network
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Educational Coin Toss
According to a report released this week by the EPE Research Center and the
America Promise Alliance, America’s major urban centers will only graduate 1 of
2 students. In certain areas, such as Baltimore, the graduation rate falls to
34.6 percent. For the population as a whole, the rate is 3 out of 10 students
who graduate from high school.
The authors of the study stated that “Our analysis finds that graduating from
high school in America’s largest cities amounts, essentially, to a coin toss.
Only about one-half (52 percent) of students in the principal school systems of
the 50 largest cities complete high school with a diploma.”
Using data from 2003-2004, the report said that the national graduation average
for public school students is 69.9 percent, with the best success in the suburbs
where the graduation rate is 74.9 percent and rural districts where the rate is
73.2 percent. Detroit, Michigan, had one of the lowest graduation rates of 24.9
percent. Only five of the principal school districts of the nation exceeded the
national average.
Dan Lips, education policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, believes the
report highlights “the systematic failure in America’s city school systems
largely because of a lack of choice in competition. In many cities, these
students don’t have an opportunity to choose which school they go to. Instead
they are assigned to schools where teacher quality is lacking and the schools
are often violent and dangerous.”
Lips contends that “Everyone who’s concerned about the state of the performance
of our nation’s schools should support the idea that parents should be able to
choose a safe and effective school for their children. That’s the quickest way
we can address this problem, one child at a time, to ensure that kids get into
quality schools.”
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