Detroit schools grad rate: 32%

The Detroit News reports:

Just 31.9 percent of Detroit students graduate in four years, according to the first major study in Michigan conducted using a method now mandated by the federal government.

The study, by the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University, looked at how many ninth-graders in Detroit and the state as a whole left high school with diplomas after four years. It portends what may happen in August, when Michigan releases the graduation rate for the class of 2007, which will be calculated for the first time using the same formula used by MSU researchers.

Detroit Public Schools officials would not comment on the study, which has not yet been published, but School Board President Carla Scott said she doesn't believe the results, which echo the findings of an Education Week study released in June. That study found fewer than a quarter of ninth-graders who entered Detroit Public Schools in 1999 graduated four years later.


According to the state Department of Education, the district's graduation rate for the same time frame was 66.8 percent.

"It doesn't seem credible to me," Scott said. "You can make data for anything you want it to say, but (they) should have factored in the reasons why they left.

"If you look at children moving out of the city, of course you're going to see a decrease. There are all kinds of reasons why children leave the city, that doesn't mean they're dropouts."

Statewide, the new study found the graduation rate in 2006 -- 72.9 percent -- was significantly lower than the state Department of Education's 85.7 percent graduation rate for the class of 2006, the last year for which data is available.

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