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Podcast Series: Innovations in Education
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High school graduation rate highest in 34 years
The nation’s high school graduation rate is the highest since 1976, but more than a fifth of students are still failing to get their diploma in four years, the Education Department said in a study released Jan. 22.
Officials said the steady rise of students completing their education is a reflection of the struggling economy and a greater competition for new jobs.
“If you drop out of high school, how many good jobs are there out there for you? None. That wasn’t true 10 or 15 years ago,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press.…Read More
Graduation rate for U.S. high-schoolers falls for second straight year
The national high school graduation rate has slipped in recent years, despite an array of public and private efforts to boost the percentage of students going on to college, the Christian Science Monitor reports. But some districts are beating the odds, succeeding with many students who otherwise may have fallen through the cracks. The percent of students earning a standard diploma in four years shifted from 69.2 percent in 2006 to 68.8 percent in 2007, according to an analysis of the most recent data in “Diplomas Count 2010.” It was the second consecutive year of decline, says the report, which was released June 10 by Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center, a nonprofit in Bethesda, Md. That translates to 11,000 fewer graduates in 2007 than in 2006. At its peak in 1969, the national graduation rate was 77 percent…
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