On Top of the News
4 in 5 U.S. High School Students Graduate
4/28/14 | Associated Press

Behind the Headline
Graduation Rates on the Rise
Fall 2013 | Education Next

A new report finds that U.S. high schools now have an 80 percent graduation rate. Gains in graduation rates among African-American and Hispanic students helped raise the overall rate.

An article in the Fall 2013 issue of Education Next looked at how high school graduation rates had begun to rise between 2000 and 2010 after 30 years of stagnation.  Graduation rates increased by 6 percentage points between 2000 and 2010 and the black-white and Hispanic-white graduation rate gap narrowed. Authors Richard J. Murnane and Stephen L. Hoffman wrote that improved K‒8 education, decreased teen birth rates, and lower incarceration rates all may have contributed to the rise in graduation rates after 2000.

-Education Next