In graduation rates, Florida ranks 45 out of the 50 states.
Hillsborough County is home to the 10th biggest school district in the country. Of the 10 largest school districts, Hillsborough has the top graduation rate at 70%. Fairfax County, VA (#14 in size) is tops at 82.5% Detroit (#11) has the lowest rate at 21.7%.
Other bay area districts in the largest 50: Pinellas graduates only 46.5% and Polk graduates 60.1%.
The study was funded by Melinda & Bill Gates, who have said something along the lines that “the typical American high school is obsolete.”
jason
3 years ago
Well I am certainly not a statistician but I think I would have noticed 1/3 of my school dropping out.
tim
3 years ago
They had some creative ways of accounting at Microsoft, and apparently they’re doing the same with these graduation rates.
jason
3 years ago
Well I read through the report, and I didn’t understand the way they calculated the rates. It seems that it would be simpler and more accurate to use a random sampling of several thousand students that you could track individually than try to see out of the entire school population how many graduated. And I still say this report tells me that 1/3 of my classmates didn’t graduate which is ridiculous. I mean it was a Florida high school diploma so it is of questionable worth but my graduating class was maybe 400 kids, are you saying that 120 others left and we never noticed? Kate are you reading this?
dcdave
3 years ago
go fairfax.
Rachel*
3 years ago
That Detroit statistic sounds like funny math to me.
jason
3 years ago
yeah one in five kids graduate? so you graduate 400 seniors and that means that 1600 kids dropped out?
Sandy
3 years ago
Since he funded the study, maybe Bill has another Big Idea that will make him Big Money? But, you know, if it works, great.
Seems to me he favored corporate sponsored schools in a piece I saw quite a while back.