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![[Image: Compass Rose]](/art/CompassRoseSmall.jpg)
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Chapter 6 EDUCATION IN CINCINNATI
This chapter on education in Cincinnati is divided into three sections; school dropouts, adult education, and functional illiteracy. A fourth section on education in the metropolitan area closes the chapter.
School Dropouts Figure 7 presents the neighborhood dropout rates. These rates reflect teenagers that reported in the census they were not in school and had not graduated. We feel these rates are probably better than really exists and therefore refer to a second data set from the Urban Appalachian Council in this chapter. However figure 7 does reflect the trend of where the highest percent of dropouts live and the neighborhoods with the lowest percent of drop-outs. The second edition of The Social Areas Of Cincinnati, had data on the 16 - 21 year olds dropouts for 1970 and 1980. The third and fourth editions use data on 16 - 19 year old dropouts so the two studies are not directly comparable to the second edition. The data in this report is comparable to that used in School Dropouts: Cincinnati's Challenge in the 80s by Michael Maloney (1). The 1985 dropout study showed that the high dropout areas of Cincinnati were primarily Appalachian and that many inner city African American neighborhoods had 16 - 19 year old dropout rates of less than 25 percent.
A comparison of 2000 census data (Table 6a) and 1980 data shows the 16 - 19 year old dropout rates increased in 14 neighborhoods. Five of these were in SES I, two in SES II, five in SES III, and two in SES IV. In terms of race and ethnicity, the dropout rate increased in five white neighborhoods, four African American neighborhoods, and in three white Appalachian neighborhoods. There was no change in the dropout rate in nine neighborhoods.
In 2000, the neighborhoods with the 10 highest dropout rates (Table 6b) were as follows: Lower Price Hill, 62 percent; Camp Washington, 60 percent; North Fairmount-English Woods, 50 percent; South Cumminsville-Millvale, 49 percent; Linwood, 48 percent; Sedamsville-Riverside, 46 percent; Over-the-Rhine, 45 percent; West End, 45 percent; Fay Apartments, 44 percent; South Fairmount, 42 percent; Walnut Hills, 42 percent; and Evanston 37 percent. Because of ties, there were 12 neighborhoods on this list. Seven are African American, five predominantly white Appalachian. This is a reversal of the 1990 situation when almost all of the 12 neighborhoods with the highest rates were Appalachian. The neighborhoods with the highest numbers (as opposed to percentages) of dropouts are East Price Hill (323), Avondale (308) and Westwood (281).
The dropout rate for Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) rose during the 1990s. In January 1996, the district's dropout rate was reported as a record 54.2 percent (citation 2). In May 2003 graduation rates had fallen to a low of 13% at one senior high school and the overall graduation rate was 60 percent (up from 47 percent in 1999, the year the census was taken). Even these dismal statistics do not reveal how bad the situation can be in some neighborhoods. The 2004 report cited a 73 percent loss of CPS students grades 9-12 in the Oyler attendance area (internal memo, author's files).
If the city wide dropout rate now approaches 40-50 percent, we believe that rates in some areas must be approaching 100 percent. Even in 1990, an analysis of block group data(3) showed that there were 9 block groups with 100 percent dropout rates. Seven were Appalachian areas (Over-The-Rhine tract 10, Linwood, Carthage, and East End) or Appalachian pockets in white areas (Westwood). Four additional block groups in Linwood, Camp Washington, and Northside had dropout rates of more than 70 percent. There were 32 block groups with dropout rates higher than 50 percent. These were about equally divided between Appalachian and African American areas.
The debate rages about how to fix the dropout problem in urban high schools. The future of cities may depend on its resolution. Educators often blame poverty or lack of parental involvement. Alternately, there are the disparities in state and local funding which allow the richest districts to spend more than $13,500 per pupil while the poorest spend $3,500. Critics of the schools blame school bureaucracy, teachers, unions, or the fact that schools are too large and impersonal to respond
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