The 21^st century is not likely to be a hospitable place for an adult without a high school degree. Frighteningly, some urban areas have graduation rates as low as 35%. Cities in Crisis examine the connection between where a young person lives and his or her chances of graduating from high school. The study shows a greater disparity within our education system than has previously been documented.

The examination of graduation rates in the school districts serving the nation's 50 most-populous cities as well as the larger metropolitan areas in which they are situated shows that graduation rates are considerably lower in the nation's largest cities than they are in the average urban locale. Further, extreme disparities emerge in many of the country's largest metropolitan areas, where students served by suburban systems may be twice as likely as their urban peers to graduate from high school.

Our analysis finds that graduating from high school in the America's largest cities amounts, essentially, to a coin toss. Only about one-half (52 percent) of students in the principal school systems of the 50 largest cities complete high school with a diploma. That rate is well below the national graduation rate of 70 percent, and even falls short of the average for urban districts across the country (60 percent). Only six of these 50 principal districts reach or exceed the national average. In the most extreme cases (Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, and Indianapolis), fewer than 35 percent of students graduate with a diploma.

Further analysis demonstrates 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. 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.

Cities in Crisis was directed by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center with support from America's Promise Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Source: Cities in Crisis