New York City’s high-school graduation rate reached a record high of nearly 60 percent last year, Mayor Bloomberg declared yesterday as he sought to settle a thorny debate with the state over how the city calculates its figures.
Breaking out colorful charts and graphs, the mayor set out to illustrate that however the rate is measured, city students are graduating in greater numbers today than at any time since the city began recording such data in 1986.
The upward trend mirrored data released last month by the state, which pegged the city’s rate at 50 percent – 10 points shy of the figure Bloomberg termed “a stunning achievement.”
The city and state have calculated the four-year graduation rate differently, with the city excluding the vast majority of special-education students and including students who graduated after summer school and those who earned equivalency diplomas.
Speaking at the Brooklyn offices of the school administrators union, the mayor said he wanted to explain the discrepancy and to announce that the city would defer to the state’s figures in the future.
“Any ways you look at it, using any yardstick, graduation rates in our schools are at a record high,” Bloomberg said, adding that having so many students failing to earn a sheepskin on time was nothing to brag about.
“Despite the heartening progress, we still have a long ways to go.”
The pronouncement came one day before the state Education Department was to release standardized reading scores for grades 3 through 8, which observers expect will be lower this year due to federal requirements that students not proficient in English take the exam.