Recently, I read two articles, one in the USA Today and the other in the New York Times, about the graduation gap between large urban cities and their surrounding suburbs. The articles displayed the graduation rates for our 50 largest cities. The study was conducted by the America’s Promise Alliance, a non-profit organization which is an advocate for children’s education, health, and safety. Colin Powell and his wife, Alma, are the co-founders of the alliance. The data in the USA Today was for the class of 2004. The graduation rate listed for Baltimore City was 34.6% and the suburban graduation rate was 81.5%. The gap was 47 points.

Some researchers have referred to the failing city schools as “dropout factories”. If that is the case, Baltimore City has a lot of “dropout factories” and the number of “factories” is increasing. Marguerite Kondracke, the executive director of the alliance, says that the urban-suburban gap is because teacher quality is not the same from classroom to classroom. I agree that there are some teachers who are partially responsible for the high number of students dropping out of school.

If you examine the staff of some of Baltimore’s failing schools, you will find a lot of low performing teachers who have been shuffled from school to school. One of the reasons our low-performing schools have become lower-performing schools is because they have become the receiving grounds for “reject” teachers. The students’ at theses schools deserve better. Research says that low-achieving students need the “best” teachers. Now, that our city’s schools have been spotlighted nationally for our low graduation rate, maybe some changes will be made. I suggest using some of the stimulus money to offer incentives so that our “best” teachers will be eager to go to low-performing schools.