As the City makes the numbers public, it’s bad news for RPS students.
Last week Richmond Public Schools announced the graduation rate is down five percentage points, to 70%.
From RPS:
“We are of course deeply disappointed by the decline, but as we shared last spring, we knew a drop was possible – if not likely – as we stopped a number of inappropriate adult practices that were artificially inflating our rate. We’ve taken a number of steps to guard against these practices from returning, and have put a variety of supports in place to help our students graduate on time. We clearly have more work to do, but I’m confident we are now heading in the right direction. Finally, I want to reiterate something I’ve often said about our students: they are every bit as capable as those in any other school division; we, the adults, just need to make sure we give them every opportunity to succeed. With our strategic plan, Dreams4RPS, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
Why can’t Richmond Public Schools make the grade?
Funding plays a large part in the schools ability to meet the students’ needs. Sadly, Richmond is not getting the state, or city funds necessary to make a change.
1 comment
Yeah funding is not the issue. What your article left out with that funding per student graph with the 16% decline is the graduation rate in 2009 was 71.4%, or basically where it is now. So either money was being seriously wasted in 2009, or there are other problems that money simply won’t fix.