80% uneducated?
As I get ready to go introduce a group of middle schoolers to the woods, I just heard some astounding figures on the NPR program "News & Notes". The graduation rate for Detroit Public Schools is the worst of the major cities in the US at 21.7%. Baltimore came in second, followed by Houston (though I can't remember what they said their percentages
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Unequal funding of schools. Inner-city schools rely on tax base for funding and when most of the poor in the region live in Detroit there is no increase in property taxes because people move out and the poor keep getting poorer.
lack of innovation nationally in our education programs (aka NCLB act that leaves kids in the dust). Check out www.standup.org that the Gates foundation is doing. I think this is cool.
High drop out rates.
I think the quality of our schools and educational programs from K through 12 is one of the core problems our region is failing. Meaning we have good teachers but the support system with state/federal funding/spending is all messed up making it difficult for poorer areas to make any real advances.
I could go on. I cite Kalamazoo as a good model. Someone benefactor infused money into hte school system, promising to pay for college for the kids who graduate highschool. The city is having a resurgence in development and new residents are moving. Goods schools improve areas.
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I couldn't agree with you more completely on this.
This weekend, I took a very informal, entirely unscientific poll, and everyone had a friend who had dropped out - many because of pregnancy. Yikes. Granted, that's the target population of my orgazination, and asking 10 kids in a social program like this, these questions isn't fair, or even remotely a way to measure of "detroit public schools in general".
But still... These kids were all 14 or younger... Yikes.
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