More data on citywide high school retention
I received some data from the city school system too late to put into my article Monday (my fault, not theirs: I had to go out of town for a few days), but I thought I'd post it here to add to the discussion about retention at the citywide high schools.
The system looked at this year's senior class -- the students who started as freshmen in 2004 -- to see how many who began at Poly, City, Western and Dunbar are still enrolled. About 30 percent are not.
Here are the figures broken down by school:
Poly: Of 351 freshmen in 2004, 268 -- or 76.4 percent -- are still enrolled as seniors.
City: Of 421 freshmen in 2004, 295 -- 70.1 percent -- are still enrolled as seniors.
Western: Of 220 freshmen in 2004, 154 -- 70 percent -- are still enrolled as seniors.
Dunbar: Of 123 freshmen in 2004, 86 -- 69.9 percent -- are still enrolled as seniors.
Total for the four schools: Of 1,115 freshmen in 2004, 803 -- 72 percent -- are still enrolled as seniors; 82.2 percent are still enrolled somewhere in the city school system and, within that group, 97.9 percent are 12th-graders.
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
Barney Wilson, Director of the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute needs to be removed.
He has put blinders on to behavior problems, he refuses to support staff in disciplinary issues, he CLEARLY plays favorites with certain members of the faculty and he is currently forcing out Baltimore City teacher of the year Dennis Jutras.
As Wilson has ran Poly SAT scores have dropped, staff morale has dropped and student morale has dropped.
He needs to go.
Posted by: Poly Pride | May 29, 2008 7:23 AM
So what these numbers say is that a majority of the students that enroll in one of these schools complete the program. And, of those who do not complete the program a VAST majority go on to complete a program elsewhere.
So, what exactly is the problem here?
Posted by: James From Hampden | May 29, 2008 9:13 AM
Poly Pride, I spoke with one of the teachers at Poly who complained of the same things. He said the senior class has been especially out of control, and the school instead of punishing their terrible behavior rewarded them with a full day BBQ in place of classes.
Class size has also been increasing, which is perhaps the biggest issue in my opinion at these elite public schools. I'm fine with giving preference to city residents who've met the admission requirements, but it won't matter who the students are if the teachers are working with 35 student class rooms.
Sara, if you get a chance I would be interested in learning about how those numbers compare to the rest of the BCPSS.
Posted by: Corey | May 29, 2008 11:28 AM
It would be interesting and useful (for 8th graders deciding where they want to go to high school)to know what the students from all of the area high schools do (college, trade school, employment) when they graduate. It is difficult for 8th graders to have a real sense of what each high school has to offer beyond what the planning for high school brochure says. As the system is deciding where to put their resources city wide, emphasis on real transition planning would be extremely helpful.
Posted by: school social worker | May 29, 2008 8:30 PM
No one sees a problem with an 80% current enrollment rate? That's absolutely terrible.
Posted by: Bill | July 2, 2008 9:48 AM