Detroit schools graduating more students

Detroit Public Schools officials are touting new numbers that show the district’s graduation rate is rising.

Those statistics show a 62% graduation rate in 2010. That’s up from about 58% rate in 2007, when the district began using a new method to count graduates.

Detroit schools’ Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb attributes the rise “in part to aggressive academic improvements and school leadership restructuring.”

Sharlonda Buckman, Executive Director of the Detroit Parent Network, says “it’s great to see progress.” But she warns it’s important to keep the numbers in perspective.

 

“We still have a long ways to go. Because if you look at the reverse of that, you have to say hey…it’s still not ok for 38% of our kids to be failing.”

Bobb has set a goal of a 98% graduation rate by 2015.

However, Bobb is still fighting an ongoing legal battle with the elected Detroit School Board over his five-year academic plan.