Which States Have the Best High School Graduation Rates?
President Obama expects all Americans to complete at least one year of postsecondary education, and a report released this week by Education Week highlights both the obstacles to attaining that goal and the hopeful signs that—at least in some states—success appears to be within reach.
"Diploma Count 2009" places the national graduation rate at about 70 percent for the class of 2006 and notes that this rate has increased nearly 3 percentage points since 1996. According to the report, New Jersey has the highest rate, 82.1 percent; Nevada has the lowest, 47.3 percent. But with about 30 percent of American students failing to graduate high school, and many other qualified students opting out of the college application process, the report states, Obama's goal can easily seem unrealistic.
Some sets of data highlighted in the report, however, paint a more positive picture of high school students' college readiness. Education Week found that about 2,200 school districts across the country exceeded expected graduation rates for the class of 2006 by at least 10 percent. The report also identifies states that are helping to prepare their students for college by installing statewide data systems that can track students' academic performance. Federal Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says he wants to see all states implement such systems.
Tags: high school | education
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Reader Comments
Online Public K-12 Education
What effect are online public schools, which bring many dropouts back into school, and which also improves test scores, having on state dropout rates? Florida has been a leader in online K12 education. What has been the effect there? And shouldn't returning students be included in the survey?
Point of accuracy
Just to clarify: The "graduation rate" referred to in the Education Week report is the percentage of kids who graduate in FOUR YEARS of high school.
Some kids are held back a year (this is not uncommon in the 9th grade), and some may drop out and get their GED a few years later. None of those students would be considered "graduates" under this limited definition, but they do indeed graduate.
The article also extrapolates the information to say that 30% of students drop out, which is wholly inaccuarate.
to New Mexico
First, AP courses are plenty challenging, and many 16-18 year old students need the close interaction of AP classes versus the large auditorium classes of colleges.
Second, the students dropping out typically have problems with basic arithmetic and reading levels between 4-8th grades. College classes are not the answer for these students.
Finally, the problem rests with apathetic students who "need" constant attention from the internet, text messaging, television, or video games. If you polled how many hours students spend on homework and how many hours are spent on other activities, (and I have) you would find students who have little to no work ethic towards school work.
Sometimes subjects just can't be made that interesting. I don't care what song and dance a teacher does, long division and fractions really cannot be made that interesting.
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