SwampFox

49% of SC students entering the 9th grade complete high school in four years with a regular diploma

Submitted by: John Warner on Aug 22, 2008 at 11:58 pm Tagged with: Academia, K-12 education Source: Swamp Fox

How much worse does the existing system of public education have to perform before we admit it is failing large portions of students and get a sense of urgency to reinvent it?

In 2004, South Carolina awarded 32,310 diplomas. That same cohort in 2001, when they entered the ninth grade, numbered 64,735. Without any consideration for fluctuations in annual attendance between the ninth and twelfth grade, the resulting is a 49% completion rate for that particular group, which closely coincides with the findings of Haney, Madaus, and Abrams who found that South Carolina was the lowest in the United States the same year with a 51% completion rate. These comparisons indicate little change in the high school completion rate in South Carolina between 2003 and 2004.

Read rest of report at High School Dropouts: Not Just an Urban or Metropolitan Problem