SC’s public school dropout rate rises again
SC’s public school dropout rate rises again
A new report issued by the U.S. Department of Education points to another rise in South Carolina’s public school dropout rate.
Federal officials reported over 8,000 public school dropouts in South Carolina during the 2007-08 school year, the most recent academic year with complete data. Roughly 200,000 students were enrolled in public school grades nine through twelve that year.
The dropout rate was highest for high school freshmen and sophomores, with over 2,300 from each grade leaving school during 2007-08. African American and Latino students in all four high school grades were more likely to leave school than their white peers by 20 to 50 percent respectively.
The report did not attempt to calculate the number of students who completed eighth grade but failed to enroll in high school or chose to leave school before high school.
The figures were published by the National Center for Education Statistics, the research arm of the United States Department of Education.
The authors of the study noted that figures are derived from the Common Core of Data (CCD) a federal databank assembled through reports provided by local and state officials. South Carolina was the only state in the nation that did not provide either specific data on the Average Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR), a national standardized indicator of four-year diploma attainment, or breakouts of the AFGR and graduation rate by student ethnicity. South Carolina educators only submitted details about the number of dropouts per year, not the number per class.
Legislative sources indicate that South Carolina public schools will spend $11,372 per student during the 2010-11 school year, up from $10,566 in 2007-08. The full report on 2007-08 public school graduates is available online at www.nces.ed.gov.
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- South Carolina official data shows public school spending continues to climb
- Beaufort County spends $15,240 to educate each public school child, highest spending level in state
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