By John Hechinger
U.S. students graduated from public high schools at the highest rate since the 1970s, with the largest leap for Hispanic students, government data show. In 2009-2010, 78.2 percent of students earned a diploma after four years, compared with 75.5 percent the year before, according to a U.S. Education Department report released today.
President Barack Obama’s administration, many states and education and business groups have been pushing to improve high- school graduation rates, which stagnated in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and fell behind the nation’s economic rivals. While the government said the reasons for the improvement aren’t clear, researchers credited elementary school preparation and better tracking of potential dropouts.
“It’s incredibly important,” Bob Wise, the former governor of West Virginia, said in a phone interview. “This is hard work, and there’s some progress being made.”
Wise’s Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington – based advocacy group focused on improving graduation rates, estimates that the 1.3 million high school dropouts from the Class of 2010 cost the U.S. economy $337 billion in lost wages over their lifetime.
To discourage dropouts, school districts have instituted early-warning systems to track students, flagging absenteeism or failing grades in English and math, said BethAnn Berliner, a senior researcher with WestEd, a San Francisco-based research organization that works with states and schools.
The Obama administration has pushed states to institute student-tracking systems and improve graduation rates through its $5 billion Race to the Top grants and other programs aimed at turning around the worst-performing schools, often called “dropout factories.”