Students in most of Colorado’s largest school districts are earning high school diplomas at a higher rate than students in the state overall, but those in Aurora and Denver are lagging, according to a national report released Tuesday.
The state’s graduation rate was 74.6 percent during the 2003-04 school year, according to “Diplomas Count 2007: Ready for What?,” a report produced by the Maryland-based Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. That exceeds the national graduation rate of 69.9 percent.
Eight of the state’s 10 largest districts had higher graduation rates than Colorado’s average. However, Denver and Aurora fell far short.
In Denver, the graduation rate was 46.3 percent, while Aurora’s was 47.9 percent. Denver school officials could not be reached for comment, but Aurora administrators said the district has many at-risk students unprepared for high school.
That is “nowhere near where we want it to be,” said William Stuart, Aurora’s chief academic officer.
The district, undergoing a major reform under new Superintendent John Barry, is boosting instruction time in math, writing and reading as a way to target students entering high school unprepared for high school-level work, Stuart said.
Kids who are successful in school are more likely to “stick with it,” he said.
Districts with higher rates overall say the goal is to have everyone graduate and while their district-wide numbers may look good, many students still aren’t earning diplomas.
The graduation rate in the Cherry Creek School District was 87.3 percent, according to the report.
Elliott Asp, assistant superintendent for Cherry Creek, said the district is focused on making sure all students, particularly kids of color, have access to programs that prepare them with the skills they need to graduate.
The district also has a variety of programs to help students with below-grade-level skills. The AVID program, for example, teaches kids about the best way to take notes and organizational skills, he said.
National and state data in the report showed that white and Asian girls had some of the highest graduation rates, while black, Latino and American Indian boys were least likely to graduate on time.
In Colorado, the graduation rate for white girls was 83.9 percent, but 46.3 percent for Latino boys.
The research center looked at enrollment changes for ninth-, 10th-, 11th- and 12th-grade students to project graduation rates.
Educators say that whether a student stays in school hinges upon multiple factors including the financial stability of their families and whether they feel successful academically. Feeling a connection to their school also is an important factor, said Deirdre Pilch, who is the principal of Centaurus High School in the Boulder Valley School District.
“Much of what we see is that the students who drop out do not have a connection in the school setting, an adult they can identify with,” she said.
At Centaurus High School, a new program links teachers with groups of 14 to 15 incoming freshmen, Pilch said. The school this year also launched a summer program for low-performing eighth-graders that allows them to go on class trips with the adults who would be their teachers in high school, Pilch said.
“We need to hook them before school starts,” the principal said.
Staff writer Karen Rouse can be reached at 303-954-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com.
