The nation’s graduation rate has dropped for the second consecutive year, following a decade of mostly solid improvements. Although the latest decrease is considerably smaller than that found the previous year, the report shows that, on a national scale, 11,000 fewer students will earn diplomas, according to a new study.
These new findings raise cause for concern, as those who fail to finish high school will face far greater hardships than their graduating peers, particularly during a period of economic instability.
According to the report from Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center three out of every 10 students in America’s public schools fail to finish high school with a diploma. That amounts to 1.3 million students falling through the cracks of the high school pipeline every year, or more than 7,200 students lost every day. Most non-graduates are members of historically disadvantaged minority groups. Dropouts are also more likely to have attended school in large, urban districts and to come from communities plagued by severe poverty and economic hardship.
“The continuing decline in the nation’s graduation rate is very troubling in light of the muscular response mounted around the dropout crisis in recent years,” said EPE Vice President Christopher B. Swanson. “Stalled progress on a nationwide scale speaks at least as much to the deep and broad roots of the dropout problem as it does to the strength of our collective response.”
During the past decade, improvements can be found for all major demographic groups, though gains have been considerably stronger among blacks and non-Hispanic whites than other groups. Despite those gains, the size of the racial gaps in graduation remain strikingly large. With Native American, Hispanic, and African-American students from the class of 2007 graduating at rates of no more than 56 percent, a graduation gap of as much as 26 percentage points divides these historically underserved minorities from their white peers. A gulf of more than 40 points separates the highest-performing state in the nation (New Jersey) and the lowest (Nevada). The report also finds great variation across the nation’s 50 largest school districts. Within that group, Clark County, Nev., which includes Las Vegas, had the lowest graduation rate, at 39.9 percent, while Montgomery County, Md., tops the nation at 83.1 percent.
“The current state of high school graduation underscores the fact that regaining traction on the dropout problem will require renewed and sustained commitment from everyone who cares about the nation’s schools,” Swanson said. “Now more than ever, a solid high school education that prepares students for college and adult life is the foundation for individual success as well as broader economic and social stability.”
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