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WASHINGTON -- Your child is less likely to graduate from high school than you were, and most states are doing little to hold schools accountable, according to a study by a children's advocacy group. More than half the states have graduation goals that don't make schools get better, the Education Trust says in a report released Thursday. And dropout rates haven't budged: One in four kids is dropping out of high school. "The U.S. is stagnating while other industrialized countries are surpassing us," said Anna Habash, author of the report by Education Trust, which advocates on behalf of minority and...

If there's one thing you have to give Philadelphia's leaders credit for achieving, it's consistency. Under the "leadership" of every mayor and city council going back decades, the city has seen its population plummet, and with it, our prospects for growth and world-class status. Consider these gems: Between 2000 and 2007, Philadelphia lost 4.5 percent of its residents, the largest percentage drop of any Top 25 city. As far as actual numbers, the only city which lost more people in that span was New Orleans, and I think the Big Easy had a weather-related incident which prompted that city's mass...

If college students can take more than four years to graduate, why not high school students? State educators are considering a proposal to raise the number of years before graduation for some Michigan high school students. Under today's regulations, students count as "dropouts" in state records if they don't finish high school in four years -- even if they receive their diplomas within the next year. But that could soon change. "This is great news," said Mary Beth Handeyside, director at Omni Adult and Alternative Education, the alternative high school of Carrollton Public Schools. "It's not only in the interest...

A new statewide count of high school dropouts, based on the tracking of individual students, shows significantly higher numbers than have been reported for years in California. The dropout report, released Wednesday by the California Department of Education, estimated that one in four high school students - 24.2 percent - failed to graduate with their classes or move into another educational program to continue their high school education. The estimates were derived from data from the 2006-07 school year. By contrast, the state claimed a 13.9 percent four-year dropout rate for the prior year. The difference is due to a...

Deploying a long-promised tool to track high school dropouts, the state released numbers today showing that 1 in 4 California students quit school in the 2006-07 school year, including 1 in 3 in Los Angeles. The rates are considerably higher than previously acknowledged but lower than some independent estimates. The figures are based on a new statewide tracking system that relies on identification numbers that were issued to all California public school students beginning in fall 2006. The ID numbers allow the state Department of Education to track students who leave one school and enroll in another, even if it...

Per this whole is it schools or is it society debate, studies like this new one from Andrew Zau and Julian Betts (pdf) are pretty depressing. They show that it’s possible at a pretty early point in a child’s schooling experience to see what their trajectory is. The don’t blame the schools crowd would have a stronger case if, armed with this information, states and schools were seriously crafting interventions to get these kids back on track. But no. Instead, perversely, they often get the least.

Barack Obama took a "tough love" message to African American youth, telling that finishing high school is a better route to success in life than an unlikely trip to the NBA or the top of the rap industry. "You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Lil' Wayne, but probably not, in which case you need to stay in school," Obama, D-Ill., told a cheering crowd, brought to a standing ovation at a town hall meeting in Powder Springs, Georgia. The presumptive Democratic nominee was speaking about high school drop out rates and the need...

“It’s a lot later than we think. We’re raising an illiterate and uneducated generation, and there’s more to come. On April 1, America’s Promise Alliance released a detailed study revealing that fewer than half of the teenagers in 17 of the largest U.S. cities drop out of high school before they graduate—more than 1.2 million of them. The cost of this is enormous: billions of dollars in lost productivity for expensive social services and (because ignorance begets crime) to build more prisons. This report sounded like an April Fool’s joke on the growing number of fools, meaning all of us....

WASHINGTON - Seventeen of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday. The report, issued by America's Promise Alliance, found that about half of the students served by public school systems in the nation's largest cities receive diplomas. Students in suburban and rural public high schools were more likely to graduate than their counterparts in urban public high schools, the researchers said. Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. students graduate on time with a regular diploma and...

Three out of 10 US public school students do not graduate from high school, and major city school districts only graduate one out of two students, according to a study released Tuesday. In a report on graduation rates around the country, the EPE Research Center and the America Promise Alliance also showed that the high school graduation rate -- finishing 12 grades of school -- in big cities falls to as low as just 34.6 percent in Baltimore, Maryland, and barely over 40 percent for the troubled Ohio cities of Columbus and Cleveland. And it said that black and native...

WASHINGTON (April 1) - Seventeen of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday. The report, issued by America's Promise Alliance, found that about half of the students served by public school systems in the nation's largest cities receive diplomas. Students in suburban and rural public high schools were more likely to graduate than their counterparts in urban public high schools, the researchers said. Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. students graduate on time with a regular...

It's a working-class white concern, and a can't-miss issue for Obama. Richard Whitmire is president of the National Education Writers Association Barack Obama's advisers know that winning in Pennsylvania requires shrinking Hillary Clinton's wide lead among "Casey Democrats," working-class whites who were fond of their former Gov Robert Casey. The themes both Obama and Clinton aired out in Ohio to attract those voters, such as attacking NAFTA and decrying lapses in health-care coverage, undoubtedly will resurface in the coming weeks. But there's one more issue affecting these voters that the candidates haven't aired. And it's Hillary-proof. Anyone visiting the homes...

The full title of this book is--CLASS AND SCHOOLS: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform To Close The Black-White Achievement Gap by Richard Rothstein INTRODUCTION This book discusses the black-white achievement gap and how to eliminate it. Dr. Rothstein no longer believes schools are the answer; he has other remedies. While this book was published in 2004, it has the imprimatur of both Economic Policy Institute and the Teachers College of Columbia University. Such formal recognition suggests educators are changing their focus in respect to the genesis of both the black-white and social class achievement gaps. SUMMARY Professor Rothstein on...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- President Bush on Wednesday signed into law a five-year renewal of Head Start, the federal preschool program for poor children. The latest update to Head Start, which began in 1965, aims to open the program to more children and ensure that teachers are better-qualified. Congress overwhelmingly approved the legislation last month, and Bush signed it despite misgivings about aspects of the bill. Bush praised the bill's push to increase competition among Head Start providers, raise learning standards and coordinate early childhood education.

American Federation of Teachers president Edward J. McElroy today proposed extending the school year into the summer in order to provide intensive instruction and enriching out-of-classroom activities for the nation’s most vulnerable K-3 students.

The LA times has been running a series on education. This is the opening paragraph of their commentary: It's sad but true, as pretty much any parent can tell you, that white, middle-class schoolchildren are more likely to be taught by experienced, highly paid teachers. And it's particularly true in ethnically diverse districts such as L.A.'s. This is a predictable convergence, but one with dismaying implications for the "achievement gap" between white and Asian students and their black and Latino counterparts. Indeed, the achievement gap is at least in part the result of an "instruction gap," and closing it will...

WASHINGTON - It's a nickname no principal could be proud of: "Dropout Factory," a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. That description fits more than one in 10 high schools across America. "If you're born in a neighborhood or town where the only high school is one where graduation is not the norm, how is this living in the land of equal opportunity?" asks Bob Balfanz, the Johns Hopkins researcher who coined the term "dropout factory." There are about 1,700 regular or vocational high schools...

Black boys 'need role models not rappers' By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 2:13am BST 10/08/2007 Black youngsters need a new generation of role models, drawn from the legal profession, business and education, to counter under-achievement and involvement in crime, a Government-funded report has said. Uanu Seshmi: boys need self-confidence to reject gangs Too often the role models for young black men are celebrities and rappers who glamorise crime, guns or gangs, the independent Reach report said. It came as a charity boss claimed that Britain's inner cities were starting to resemble American ghettos and that a lack...

Last Updated: Friday, 22 June 2007, 10:25 GMT 11:25 UK Low attainers 'poor white boys' The researchers say some policy initiatives have lost their way Most of the persistent low achievers in England's schools are poor and white, and far more are boys than girls, a Joseph Rowntree Foundation study says. Chinese and Indian pupils are most successful. Afro-Caribbean pupils do no worse than white British from similar economic backgrounds, results suggest. The analysis, by London School of Economics academics, says that some policies are having positive effects. But others, such as school league tables, actually make things worse. The...

Boys Are In Trouble by: Wendy Cook, June 04, 2007 Since the 33-year-old Women’s Educational Equity Act’s inception, the U. S. Congress has appropriated around $10 million annually for research, curricula development and teaching strategies to promote “gender equity,” according to information from the U.S. Department of Education. But what about the boys, have they been left behind by our nation’s schools? “Boys are in trouble,” said Krista Kafer, visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. “The facts are quite clear; boys trail girls in most indicators of academic excellence such as, school engagement, achievement scores, and graduation rates at...