The state’s graduation rate rose more than a percentage point to 80.1 percent, the highest it has ever been, the state Department of Education reported Monday.
The rate is nearly 10 percentage points higher than in 2006.
The state made even larger gains among African Americans and Hispanics during that five year period. African-American high school graduation has gone up 11.5 percent since 2006 and the Hispanic graduation rateis 13 percentage points higher during the time frame. The rate for Hispanic students is now 77.3 percent, up 2 percentage points from last year. The graduation rate for African-Americans is 68.4 percent, same as last year.
But, while the Sunshine state’s graduation rate rose to more than 80 percent, critics say, it’s no time to celebrate as the data does not include thousands of students who transferred into adult education programs, tampabay.com reports.
Come next year, a new tougher federal formula will be used by all states and Florida won’t be able to hide those adult education transfers. As a consequence graduation rates are anticipated to fall, some estimates suggesting between 5 to 10 percent across all states.
So, 900 students start out in ninth grade at Winter Park High school and only 600 graduate. They actually handed out to parents a dropout rate of 2%. Try to get orange county to tell you how many students graduated last year. Then what is the average number of students per grade. Alas those mean feds for changing the system. (In this example 300/900 is 331/3 percent dropout or 66 2/3 graduate and Winter park has to have one of the lowest dropout rates in Orange County) This report-before- FCAT shows less than 70%. FCAT throws kids on the street after 10th grade. Orange County Schools always lied to this parent. http://www.broadprize.com/asset/1687-fl_orange_2011datareport.pdf