Many Big City Kids Won’t Graduate

The likelihood that a teen living in one of America’s largest cities will graduate high school essentially amounts to a coin toss, with about a 50–50 chance, says a new study.

Only about 52 percent of students in the school systems of the 50 largest cities complete high school with a diploma, says a report from America’s Promise Alliance, a nonprofit group founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell that focuses on children’s education, safety, and health.

Among the worst—based on 2003–04 data—were Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, and Indianapolis. In those cities, fewer than 35 percent of students received a diploma.

“Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation” also says that in metropolitan areas a clear distinction exists between urban centers and their surrounding metropolitan areas. Metro areas around 35 of the largest cities show an urban-suburban disparity that reaches 35 percentage points in several cases.

That figure is well below the national graduation rate of 70 percent, and even falls short of the 60 percent average for urban districts across the country, the report says. The findings show that the extremely low graduation rates for these large school systems contribute disproportionately to the nation’s graduation crisis.

“The principal school districts of America’s 50 largest cities collectively educate 1.7 million public high school students—one out of every eight in the country,” the report says. “However, these 50 education agencies account for nearly one-quarter [23 percent] of the 1.2 million students nationwide who fail to graduate with a diploma each year.”

Other cities with low graduation rates included New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, and Philadelphia.