High school grad rate improves
By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published April 3, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Colorado's high school graduation rate edged up slightly last year, to 75 percent, the state education department announced Wednesday.
That's 0.9 percent higher than the rate for the class of 2006, or about 550 more graduates statewide.
Blacks and Hispanics boosted their graduation rates in 2007, but continued to lag the rates for white and Asian students.
Among black students, 65.4 percent graduated while 57.1 percent of Hispanic students got diplomas.
Education commissioner Dwight Jones said the improvement is encouraging, but not good enough.
"Teachers, principals and parents should feel good about the upward trend, but at the same time we need to redouble our efforts," Jones said in a prepared statement.
Exactly why the graduation rate improved is not clear, education department spokesman Mark Stevens said.
"It's just such a small number in terms of percentage increase across 178 school districts that it would be hard to assign a reason," Stevens said.
Comparisons before 2006 are not possible because the system for calculating the graduation rate was changed under a law passed in 2005.
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April 3, 2008
7:38 a.m.
Suggest removal
vudumom writes:
Wow ! 550 more graduates statewide! The Department of Education is probably planning a big party for it's staff to celebrate. Maybe a $400,000 dollar trip to Breckenridge is in order.
April 3, 2008
4:21 p.m.
Suggest removal
ratisbona writes:
What does graduation rate have to do with race?
Are certain races inherently more capable in school?
I would think that there are some important socialogical factor involved with graduation statisistics, such as income, school district, parental situation, and similar. But, what does the amount of pigment in the skin have to do with graduation.