The nation’s high school graduation rate continued its slow, incremental rise in 2013-14, a new U.S. Department of Education report shows.
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Nationally, the Education Department said 82.3% of students graduated – the highest rate since the department started using new, uniform measures in 2010.
Although the graduation rate for black and Hispanic students still lags behind that for white students, the gap is narrowing.
The latest figures released Tuesday by the Education Department showed wide disparities in graduation rates according to where students live.
The state with the highest graduation rate was Iowa, where 90.5 percent of the Class of 2014 graduated on time. Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada and OR and the District of Columbia had graduation rates below Florida’s for the 2013-2014 school year.
The GradNation campaign, a coalition of organizations working to push the US graduation rate up to 90 percent by 2020, applauded the news in a statement. Duncan also noted that the achievement gap progress was “promising” for students of color.
New Jersey tied with Wisconsin for the third highest rate at 88.6 percent. For special populations, ME was in the top 10 for graduation rates of Hispanic students – third – and Asian/Pacific Islander students – seventh.
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Duncan said the graduation rate is just one of factors that should be considered in evaluating a school. It also showed the groups of students who tend to struggle – students with disabilities and those learning English – are also making gains. At the time, they said comparisons between states are hard to make because states have different graduation requirements.
