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Wednesday, June 5, 2013

The Educated Reporter: New Report: High School Graduation Rate Continues Uptick, Nears 75 percent

The Educated Reporter: New Report: High School Graduation Rate Continues Uptick, Nears 75 percent:

New Report: High School Graduation Rate Continues Uptick, Nears 75 percent

The nation’s high school graduation rate is approaching 75 percent, its highest rate in 40 years, according to a new report from Education Week. Of course, that good news must be tempered with a sobering statistic – an estimated 1 million students will fail to graduate this year, a loss of 5,500 students for every day on the academic calendar.

The annual Diplomas Count report tracks graduation rates across the country and calculated the national average at 74.7 percent for the class of 2010, the most recent year for which data is available. That’s nearly 8 percentage points higher than the graduation rate for the class of 2000. Vermont had the nation's highest graduation rate at 85 percent with the District of Columbia finishing last at 57 percent.

The nationwide graduation rate calculated by Ed Week is lower than the one released in a January report from