The report, Cities in Crisis, reveals that more than three out of ten American high-school students don't graduate.As disturbing as that is, the news gets worse from there.
In urban districts, the graduation rate is just 60.4%. Columbus, Ohio's schools graduate only four out of ten. Graduation rates in Baltimore and Cleveland are a shade over 34%, while Indianapolis comes in at 30.5%. In Detroit, it's an appalling 25%.
You read that right -- only one out of every four Detroit students graduates from high school.
For a moment, try to wrap your brain around the fact that fully 75% of that city's 18-year-olds enter society without a high-school education. Nationally, 40% of the city kids you meet are -- or will be -- high-school dropouts.
I don't care to join the hand-wringing over the reasons why this is so, nor am I interested in discussing solutions. Explanations, however plausible, are pointless; proposals, however laudable, are futile.
To put a fine point on my pessimism, I believe that our nation is looking at a future dominated by handout-hungry Americans. Right now these parasites have us pinned down; soon, I predict, we'll be overrun.
I have no confidence in our ability to deny entitlements to the undeserving. I don't believe that we have the national will to overhaul our education system.
Until parents and families -- not schools -- get about the business of preparing children for life, this country has no shot at a better future.
Read the report: Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytical Report on High School Graduation (pdf)
