National Center for Education Statistics
A recent report from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR) has remained essentially steady across the country, although 16 states had a slight increase of 1 percentage point from the previous year. The overall dropout rate, however, has decreased only 0.3 percentage points from last year, according to the report.
It states that 2,965,286 public school students received a high school diploma in the 2007-2008 school year in the United States (excluding South Carolina), which it translated to a 74.9 percent AFGR.
Racial disparities remain in the dropout rate, with Asian/Pacific Islanders at 2.4 percent, Whites at 2.8 percent, Hispanics at 6.0 percent, Blacks at 6.7 percent and American Indian/Alaska Native at 7.3 percent.
Across the 47 states that reported, the rates of males dropping out were higher at 4.6 percent than for females at 3.5 percent.
Free, 34 pages. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010341.pdf.
