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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Less Than Half Of IPS Students Graduate
Looking at the remarkably low graduation rate for IPS students, it is no surprise that so many inner city youth turn to a life of crime. New figures released by the state show that IPS has a graduation rate of just 46%. The state rate, while considerably higher, is still only 76.5%. Northwest High School turned in the lowest rate in Marion County at 40%. The highest rate among traditional high schools was a 90% graduation rate turned in by Speedway. The Star's Andy Gammill reports that changes implemented at IPS to turn the graduation rate around are expected to take hold in three years according to school officials
To the extent that a family values education, kids will get educated. This low graduation rate reflects the low value placed on education by parents of children enrolled in Marion County school districts.
ReplyDeleteMy own son is almost done with his 13 years in the IPS system, the final four in the math-science magnet at Tech HS. That is as good an education as a kid can get in Marion County; the graduation rate in that magnet is extremely high, as is the ratio of kids continuing their education.
He's a different kind of statistic because I (a low-to-moderate income single custodial father, by the way) have impressed upon him the value of an education with something other than a size 10 boot in the butt.
If everyone would just take responsibility for raising his own sons right, our educational holocaust would end.
(This comment reflects the 20-25% graduation rate for boys both black and white from IPS.)
73% of the state's bond debt is because of schools.
ReplyDeleteIt is time to dismantle this machine. Private churches and other organizations can educate better and for a lower cost.
Did you know that there is one administrator for every three teachers in Washington Township?
Did you know that those administrators are paid $100k plus of your money?
I didn't know that lunch ladies, maintenance staff and janitors count as "administrators". Maybe they make $100k in Washington Twp., but not in IPS.
ReplyDeleteThis is a degree of failure that would not be acceptable in any other enterprise in this country. It is a more impactful problem than all of the other societal ills discussed in this forum or any other. The 51% of IPS children who do not graduate do not have a snowball's chance in hell of leading productive lives in modern society. They have been condemned by absent or indifferent parents, selfish teachers unions, incompetent educational bureaucrats and spineless politicians to lives of underachievement and struggle. It is virtually criminal to allow this to continue.
ReplyDeletetjefferson, all anyone can do is raise his own sons right. And someone else's, too, if he has the chance.
ReplyDeleteSocial services and programs such as Big Brothers and Boy's Clubs and PAL catch some kids, but by rights they simply can't have as big an impact as a boy's father or step-father.
40% children in Indianapolis are born to single mothers. By itself, that's not bad or good. But it strongly implies the absence of a good father in those kids' lives. Mathematically, it goes a long way to explaining the difference between a 40% grad rate in IPS and 60-75% in the first-ring suburbs (the townships).
It is a horror perpetrated by sperm donors who are not men.
It is hard to think about the state of education in our city. Check out www.pcrhs.org to see what can happen when the business community, families and students come together to do something different. And its working across the country: www.cristoreynetwork.org
ReplyDelete