Cities in Crisis

I found an interesting report on America's graduation rates. It focuses on the most populous cities in the country. It is called Cities in Crisis and is published by America's Promise Alliance. Page 10 gives a chart of the graduation rates for school districts serving the nation's 50 largest cities. The report was recently published and the web address is:
http://www.americaspromise.org/uploadedFiles/AmericasPromiseAlliance/Dropout_Crisis/SWANSONCitiesInCrisis040108.pdf
It shows that there is a pretty huge disparity between the cities and their surrounding metropolitan area. Detroit City School District comes in last with a 24.9% graduation rate. Baltimore City doesn't fare all that much better, with a 34.6% graduation rate. The chart on page 12 of the report shows that the suburban districts of Baltimore have an 81.5% graduation rate. How is it that 34.6% of city kids are successfully graduating while 81.5% of county kids are graduating? We have to figure out a way to do better!