National public high school graduation rate hits four-decade high
Mark Hugo Lopez, associate director of the Pew center, said the findings confirm trends his organization has been tracking. “We’ve seen a surge in the Hispanic high school completion rate,” he said.
He pointed to the nation’s soft economy as one reason more students are staying in school but added that there is probably a shift in demographics at play, too. As the number of Hispanic immigrants declines, more high school students are likely to have been born in the United States and value education, Lopez said.
Graduation rates improved for every race and ethnicity in 2010, but gaps among racial groups persist. Asian students had the highest graduation rate, with 93 percent of students finishing high school on time. White students followed with an 83 percent graduation rate, American Indians and Alaska Natives with 69.1 percent and African Americans with 66.1 percent.
Jack Buckley, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, agreed with Lopez that the weak economy is one reason for the improvement in graduation rates across the board.
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Not surprising when you keep lowering the bar for success.
ikeya on January 22, 2013 at 1:13 PM
Less prepared for self reliance than ever. Ask these grads what their take on the Constitution is sometime. Prepare to be heartbroken.
Bmore on January 22, 2013 at 1:15 PM
Ding ding!
darwin on January 22, 2013 at 1:16 PM
Since this is from WaPo, I’ll make fun of it.
Does this remind you of the Court Jester? That they hurry through Danny Kaye’s knighting process? (Just watched it again this weekend.)
Sir Napsalot on January 22, 2013 at 1:17 PM
Because this is now an acceptable answer.
The Rogue Tomato on January 22, 2013 at 1:20 PM
They just stopped counting those kids who dropped out and no longer seek education
Ditkaca on January 22, 2013 at 1:21 PM
Wonder what the jobs rates of these who graduate are? Just because you graduate does not make you smart enough to go get a high paying job or get into college?
L
letget on January 22, 2013 at 1:22 PM
The percentage of above average students has is at a record level under Obama!
hit and run on January 22, 2013 at 1:22 PM
All your graduates are belong to us.
Harbingeing on January 22, 2013 at 1:36 PM
They can’t read their own diplomas, but they can recite left wing mantras all day long.
RadClown on January 22, 2013 at 1:45 PM
Never mind the fact that graduating from high school these days is about as difficult as putting on a hat.
CurtZHP on January 22, 2013 at 1:45 PM
I’m not going to let Obama out “Do Something!” with this, so I’ll propose it:
We need to continue our success in raising high school graduation rate by continuing down our path in tanking the economy!
Dusty on January 22, 2013 at 1:55 PM
THIS.
since I’m a HS science teacher, I feel I can contribute to the article’s notions as BULL$HITE.
Students are actually getting dumber while the bar is lowered every year & we say they’re now somehow smarter.
It’s all an illusion.
And these morons at WaPo etc are falling for it.
Badger40 on January 22, 2013 at 1:59 PM
Pffft! The standards for graduating are barely above what is politely called “special education”, and that’s before you have a lot of…informal assistance…from the teachers.
MelonCollie on January 22, 2013 at 2:17 PM
And yet O’bamna set an alltime American record in 2008, when he got 70% of the high school dropout vote, and he did even better in 2012. He got 83% of the ’12 HS dropout vote in Pennsylvania, 80% in California, and 73% in Nevada.
Del Dolemonte on January 22, 2013 at 2:18 PM
I see all high-school grads as under-educated until they earn a degree requiring upper-division coursework. Post-grad is preferable.
I wonder how many people kvetching in this thread hold post-secondary degrees. How many hold post-grad degrees?
A universal truth about those who don’t apply or get accepted to any university is that they all believe they are smart enough to do so in spite of their failure to have done so. This applies equally to the left and right.
I make no apologies for being a snob.
Capitalist Hog on January 22, 2013 at 2:40 PM
Please provide a link supporting your stats. After which, I will gladly walk right out of my office door and (figuratively) burn a buddy.
I’m not lazy; I performed multiple search queries. I am only finding links to forum/blog comments and other non-sourced posts repeating these stats. I even came across one another of yours. Incidentally, that one contains no links either.
Your stats are very specific. I hope you’re not full of crap. I don’t have money on this or anything. But I will get to do some serious ribbing.
Capitalist Hog on January 22, 2013 at 2:51 PM
I’m not sure why you think university courses are any better. I attended a private high school and took AP classes. Some college courses I took were below the level of what I had already learned in HS. The education system we have is nothing but useless credentialing.
Resolute on January 22, 2013 at 3:08 PM
To repeat what others have said, this statistic on graduation rates is useless. I’ve been in a classroom with 10th graders who need a calculator to do “6 times 8″ and “60 divided by 6″.
I had another student in an Algebra II class who couldn’t add and subtract negative numbers. But he needed one more math credit to graduate, so the administration put him there to get his D- (even though he came nowhere close to earning it).
Bruce MacMahon on January 22, 2013 at 3:15 PM
Do your degrees somehow make you a better person? They may make you more educated but that in itself doesn’t make you better than those that don’t have degrees. As we have seen by so called educational elite college degrees are mostly BS.
chemman on January 22, 2013 at 3:41 PM
This is a laughable retort. You probably think a Suzuki Samurai is equivalent to an H2. It’s just a little smaller, right?
All universities are not equal. You must know this. I can guarantee you that nearly all of my undergrad classmates were better educated than those at Podunk U.
I took AP courses and earned credits from AP exams. I notice you did not mention your exams. If you took AP courses and did not go on to college you wasted your time. If you took AP courses but didn’t earn credits, you blew it.
Capitalist Hog on January 22, 2013 at 3:50 PM
Nope.
LOL. I take it you don’t have a degree.
Capitalist Hog on January 22, 2013 at 3:55 PM
That’s the headline they chose to run with, and yet the article spends most of its time focused on the fact that when the economy sucks grad rates go up.
raxx on January 22, 2013 at 3:55 PM
AP pokes fun at that interesting detail in this Greenroom thread.
Capitalist Hog on January 22, 2013 at 4:02 PM
Green Room
Capitalist Hog on January 22, 2013 at 4:02 PM
I have both, but I fail to see your point other than to troll and puff your chest. Some of the smartest people I’ve done business with were high school dropouts, and some of the dumbest had Ivy League degrees. Book smarts don’t mean diddly if you can’t apply them with some street smarts and common sense.
RadClown on January 22, 2013 at 4:31 PM
I agree with the heft of your rebuke.
I won’t hire high school dropouts. But I have hired many men with no post-secondary education.
Intellect is socio-hereditary. Education is mostly a function of discipline. Most people can be educated beyond the capacity their intellect might indicate; the military proves this. Our military has mastered teaching individuals with varied intellects to execute complex operations with micrometer precision.
My point here was not to troll. Rather I sought to rebuff the anti-intellectuals, anti-education morons parading pompously in the emperor’s clothes.
Capitalist Hog on January 22, 2013 at 8:16 PM