News
Report: State had best improvement in nation
Tuesday, Jun 9, 2009
S.C. graduation rate climbs out of basement
By GINA SMITH
South Carolina had the nation’s best improvement in high school graduation rates between 1996 and 2006, according to a new report released today by Education Week.
According to the national education magazine, the state’s on-time graduation rate jumped to 66.3 percent in 2006 from 53.2 percent in 1996. The national average in 2006 was 69.2 percent.
The Palmetto State now ranks 37th among states and the District of Columbia, ahead of both North Carolina, ranked 42nd, and Georgia, ranked 49th.
While it’s a big jump from 2006, when the magazine ranked South Carolina 50th, public school proponents and critics alike say more work is needed.
“Improved numbers are always positive, but we can’t be satisfied with where we are because our current graduation rate is still far too low,” State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex said in a prepared statement. “We have to intervene earlier to help at-risk students and give them more options to catch up and keep up.”
The on-time graduation rate reported by Education Week and the State Department of Education differ, and there’s no clear consensus on why.
Alan Richard, spokesman for the Southern Regional Education Board, a nonprofit that works with government and education leaders in 16 states, speculates it’s partly because South Carolina has gotten better at collecting and reporting education data and has also made real academic gains.
“There’s evidence that S.C. is making progress,” Richard said. “This is good news for the state, but there’s plenty more work to be done.”
According to the State Department of Education, which uses a federal formula, the state’s on-time graduation rate is 73 percent. That means 73 percent of ninth-graders graduate from high school within four years.
South Carolina ranks 11th of the 15 states that calculate their graduation rates the same way.
In coming years, other states have agreed to convert to this same formula, Richard said, meaning there will be a federally recognized apples-to-apples comparison of the states’ graduation rates.
South Carolinians for Responsible Government, an organization that favors school choice options, said South Carolina is behind where it needs to be.
“One in three public high school students failed to graduate this year in South Carolina,” said Randy Page, SCRG president. “Politicians’ talk about improvement won’t mean much to the 21,873 students who failed to receive diplomas this year.”
The group is calling for more options for parents, including tax credits for parents who send students to private schools, as a way to improve education.
A second survey, released Monday, underscored that South Carolinians in general believe a high graduation rate is critical to the state.
An acceptable graduation rate is 90 percent by the year 2020, according to a survey of S.C. parents, educators and taxpayers.
Monday, the Education Oversight Committee, the state’s education watchdog group, released the survey results and will use them to write goals for the state’s public school system for 2020.
Statewide efforts already under way to increase the state’s graduation rate include:
• School districts are working with the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University to create research-based systems that identify early students at risk of dropping out and help them.
• Nearly 2,800 students are participating in the S.C. Virtual School program. The students take online courses not available at their schools and recover credits in areas in which they have fallen behind.
• The Education and Economic Development Act, now in its fourth year of implementation, tailors high school course work to each student’s specific interests and prepares them for careers.
Reach Smith at (803) 771-8658 or by email at gnsmith@thestate.com.
The State