BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana suffered the biggest drop in its public high school graduation rate of any state in the Southern region over a five-year period, a new report says.
State officials disagree.
The study says 13 of 16 Southern states reviewed showed graduation gains between 2002 and 2006, a big reversal from earlier this decade when the numbers were slipping.
Tennessee’s rate rose by 11 percentage points, to 71 percent of its public school students graduating from high school on time. Arkansas went up five percentage points, Alabama four and Mississippi three.
“Perhaps for the first time Southern states overall are well within reach of the national average graduation rate,” according to the Southern Regional Education Board,in Atlanta.
Louisiana’s figure dropped from 64 percent in 2002 to 60 percent in 2006, according to the SREB report.
The national figure for 2006 was 73 percent, according to the study. The regional figure was 72 percent.
State education officials disputed the Louisiana figures, mostly because of what they called tabulation flaws caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
While Louisiana lags, the picture is not as bleak as the SREB report says, state officials said.
“If thousands of kids get knocked out of your state by a natural disaster, out migration, etc. your graduation rate gets dramatically and falsely pushed down,” said George Noell, executive director of strategic research and analysis for the state Department of Education.
Noell made his comments in an e-mail response to questions, after being asked to look at the SREB study.
Graduation and dropout numbers have become one of the most contentious issues in state education circles.
Earlier this year the state Legislature approved a bill that will offer students a “career diploma,” which is part of a bid to trim the dropout rate by offering classes that lead to technical and other careers.
About one in three high school students in Louisiana fail to graduate on time compared to one in four nationally.
The SREB study focused on graduation figures from 2002 to 2006. Similar reviews often have a two- or three-year lag because of the complexity of comparisons.
States regularly claim higher rates than SREB researchers give them credit for.
Not surprisingly, the report says Louisiana showed its biggest drop between 2005 and 2006 the first class after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The study says that 64 percent of public high school students graduated on time in 2005 and 60 percent did so in 2006.
The state claims the graduation rate was 64.8 percent in 2006.
 
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