High School Graduation Rate – Georgia

Georgia failed to count thousands of high school dropouts, By Nancy Badertscher and Kelly Guckian, August 19, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Georgia’s dropout problem is twice as bad as school officials previously calculated, an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows. Using data for the Class of 2011, obtained through an open records request, the AJC found that 30,751 students left high school without a diploma, nearly double the 15,590 initially reported. The discrepancy came to light because this year the federal government made all states use a new, more rigorous method to calculate graduation rates. Under the new formula, the state’s graduation rate plunged from 80.9 percent to 67.4 percent, one of the nation’s lowest. Part of the reason for the decline is that the new formula defines a graduate as someone who earns a diploma in four years, though thousands of students take five years or longer. But the AJC’s analysis shows – for the first time – how much of the discrepancy stemmed from a failure to accurately measure how many students drop out…”