Not Many Making It Through the Pipeline

Three slightly different takes on the Consortium study:

City schools do poor job of college prep: study Crain's
Chicago Public Schools are doing a poor job in putting students, particularly Latinos, on track to succeed in college, according to a report issued today by a University of Chicago research group. The university's Consortium on Chicago School Research found that though 80% of ...

OF 100 CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOL FRESHMEN Tribune
Of every 100 freshmen entering a Chicago public high school, only about six will earn a bachelor's degree by the time they're in their mid-20s, according to a first-of-its-kind study released Thursday by the Consortium on Chicago School Research.

6.5% of CPS freshmen finish college Sun Times
Chicago public high school freshmen are battling daunting odds: Only 6.5 percent of their predecessors have been earning four-year college degrees by their mid-20s.

Comments

I'm wondering about the data on the black students many of these students go to black colleges the study only used Ill. universities.

How can a district with an allegedly 100% college preparatory curriculum do so badly in preparing students for college?

1.False data – CPS wants the appearance of having such a hot shot college preparatory curriculum, they force high school administrator to report higher than the real number of students who plan to go to college; they are their own worst enemy in this report.
2.We have to start at the elementary school level. With so few students who are able to complete simple math problems, you have to know that they never learned the fundamentals at the elementary school level. You then have to ask, “How did they meet the CPS requirements to get into high school?” This is a never ending cycle that has to be addressed where it began.
3.Dumbed down college preparatory curriculum, pass/fail grades and students who graduate with a 3.0 or greater GPA because they got the highest grade in the class; that could have been curved down to less than 70%.

It is really worth reading the actual report, as many of your questions are addressed in it. For instance, it lists the college completion rates at all of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities; the fact that most of the high school grads who go on to college actually began high school with at/above average test scores (so it's not just an elementary school problem) and some schools, like the charter schools, are sending a far higher percentage of their graduates to 4 year colleges than many neighborhood and selective enrollment schools, who send the majority of grads to two year schoools. It is available in PDF from the Consortium website.