DPTV Highlights Superintendent's Dropout Challenge

Reporter's Notebook: Helping Students Succeed in Detroit

By: Hari Sreenivasan

The facts that paint a bleak, dark, down-and-out Motor City are not scarce. Whether it is the unemployment, or foreclosures, or crime, Detroit finds itself on lists like Forbes' 20 most miserable cities. But in my travels, it ranks only second to New Orleans, in the sense that a turnaround is under way.

The dropout crisis is particularly acute here, with only 62 percent of the kids in the Detroit Public Schools making it to graduation. But what you'll note behind that grim headline in the press release is that DPS has actually increased the graduation rate and decreased the dropout rate in the past few years. 62 percent is an improvement -- from how bad things were before.

So many attempts:

We highlighted a few different initiatives that are underway to try to turn the tide. The state of Michigan has ranked and identified the lowest-performing schools. A new statewide school district, the Education Achievement System is set to take over the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools across the state, starting in Detroit.

Non-profits like the Detroit Parent Network are acting as a bridge to help reconnect parents with their children's education process. The state department of education has also launched an ambitious plan in 2009 called the Superintendent's Dropout Challenge. Recent research on high schools participating in the challenge show that they have decreased their dropout rates by 9 percent and increased their graduation rate by 10 percent.  READ MORE

Please review the video at the end of the article!