High school graduation rate in 2010 highest since 1974

Los Angeles, CA, United States (4E) – The high school graduation rate in the 2009-10 school year was 78.2 percent, the highest rate since 1974, according to a U.S. Education Department report released Tuesday.

Fewer jobs that kept students in school during the period contributed to the graduation of more than three million public school students in the 2009-2010 school year, the report said. Most of the graduates or 405,000 were from California, which has the nation’s largest public school system.

By race, most of the graduates were Asian/Pacific Islander students with an average graduation rate (AGR) of 93.5 percent. This was followed by white students with an AGR of 83 percent, Latinos at 71.4 percent, American Indian and Alaska Native at 69.1 percent and African Americans at 66.1 percent.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the new report from the National Center for Education Statistics is good news.

“As President Obama said in yesterday’s Inaugural address, our journey to equality of opportunity is not yet complete. But as this report shows, we are making progress in our schools toward living up to the American creed of equal opportunity for all,” Duncan said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the high school dropout rate in 2009-2010 remains high particularly in African-American, Latino, and Native-American communities, the report said.

During that academic year, more than 514,000 students dropped out of high school nationwide, a rate of 3.4 percent. Most of the dropouts numbering nearly 93,000 were from California. Nationwide the dropout rate was higher for males, 3.8 percent, than for females, at 2.9 percent, according to the report.

---

---