at graduating black students, that is, according to the latest report.

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...wrence_te.html

I would think that the fact that fewer black students graduate from college than white students is not new news. I wonder if WSU has tried to ascertain the reasons why students drop out. I know it can be difficult to reach people in Detroit. Some change addresses frequently and their phones are not always working. Still there should be
some basic information WSU would have like what year in school did they drop out and what reasons did they give at the time? What were their grades like at that time?
Did they have the necessary skills to enter college to begin with? Colleges should not be expected to make up for 12 years of either poor scholarship or poor instruction.
The suburban schools I go to want to give the students as many positive experiences, that is successes, in schools as possible. I'm sure this is true in the Detroit schools too. Unfortunately, the students don't all have parents making sure that they do their homework or able to help them . So much is expected of kindergartners today. If a child isn't reading or writing to a certain standard, they may have to repeat kindergarten. The public school near us wanted to hold my daughter back in kindergarten for social reasons. She could read before she entered kindergarten.

In elementary school, classes are created in math and reading according to ability. This discrimination is probably necessary but it may create a mindset that less should be expected of certain students. By high school there are many classes where students are more interested in playing power games than in doing school work so less is required of them. Again, I think parental expectations are really the prime motivator for most students in school.