The national high school graduation rate hit an all-time high in 2013-14, with 82 percent of students earning a diploma on time.
Federal data released Tuesday show that every category of student — broken down by race, income, learning disabilities and whether they are English language learners — has posted annual progress in graduation rates since 2010, when states adopted a uniform method of calculating those rates.
The gap between graduation rates for white students and black and Hispanic students has narrowed, but disparities persist.
In 2013-14, 87.2 percent of white students graduated on time, while the rate for blacks was 72.5 percent and Hispanics was 76.3 percent. Asians had the highest graduation rate, with 89.4 percent. For low-income students, the rate was 74.6 percent. Disabled students had a 63.1 percent rate, and 62.6 percent of English language learners finished on time.
The data, collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, estimate the graduation rate by dividing the number of high school graduates in a class by the number of students who entered that class as freshmen four years earlier, with adjustments for transfers. Colorado trailed the national average, with a 77.3 percent rate. The Washington Post
