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Detroit City district ranks last in graduations

Only 21.7% finish Detroit schools in 4 years, study says

BY CHASTITY PRATT
FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

June 21, 2006

How the numbers were calculated

The study used a process called the Cumulative Promotion Index to come up with high school graduation rates. The data from the 2002-2003 school year, the most recent available, was collected from the U.S. Department of Education. The method looks at graduating from high school as a cumulative process rather than as a single event, multiplying the percentage of kids who make it through ninth grade, 10th grade and 11th grade and those who go on to get diplomas, to get a total percentage. The research was led by Christopher B. Swanson, director of the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. Here's how it works:

Fewer than one in four high school students in Detroit graduate on time, according to a new report released Tuesday that compares the 50 largest U.S. school districts and ranks the city's public schools last in the nation.

Only 21.7% of the Detroit district's students graduate in four years, the Diplomas Count report said. In it, the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center in Bethesda, Md., used a formula based on the number of students at the beginning of the year in each class -- ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th -- and the number of students who moved on to the next class the following year or graduated. The magazine Education Week published the report Tuesday.

Detroit Public Schools officials were quick to refute the figure, however, saying that the report does not take into account the large number of students it loses to suburban districts, charter schools or alternative programs, such as those for the General Equivalency Development certificate. At the same time, they noted various efforts -- including online community college courses -- to help retain students.

School officials said the report was based on a formula using data from the 2002-03 school year whereby researchers estimated the likelihood that a ninth-grader would complete high school in four years, earning a traditional diploma.

"To our knowledge, they were not calculating graduation rates. They are really looking at probability rates, which is quite different," said Juanita Clay Chambers, the district's chief academic officer.

Even so, the report suggested Detroit's public schools are in much worse shape than other districts at the bottom of the rankings, including New York City, which has a 38.9% graduation rate. Fairfax County, Va., was at the top, with an 82.5% rate. By comparison, the report's methodology showed 70% of students graduating on time nationwide and 66% in Michigan.

Part of Detroit's problem, according to the report, is that it suffers from low parental involvement as students grow older and a high transitory rate that leads students to attend several schools before graduation. It also has a small but significant number of students who end up in alternative programs to get a GED.

"They may graduate, but they don't graduate from Detroit," said Tyrone Winfrey, a school board member and chair of the board's academic affairs committee.

Kurt Metzger, research director for the United Way for Southeast Michigan, said the report is "low balling" the graduation rate because it doesn't count students who take longer than four years to graduate, or those who get a GED or transfer to another district.

Any move for change that would improve the numbers can't come fast enough for Devon McWright, 16, who attended Chadsey High School before enrolling this week in the Life Skills Center alternative charter high school. Violence and other social issues lead students to switch schools or drop out, Devon said.

"Everybody gets caught up in competing and trying to impress people, then they have the gang violence and the teachers -- they don't respond well to the kids," he said.

His mom, Andrea McWright, said Detroit schools need to work with parents to keep students from going to charters and other districts.

"There are dedicated parents, but when parents go up to the schools, they don't get any feedback," she said. "Then you have to take your child out of the public schools."

Contact CHASTITY PRATT at 313-223-4537. Gannett News Service and Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.