Austin 21st with High School Graduation Rates

WASHINGTON — Austin ranks 21st among large cities in high school graduation rates, with just 58.2 percent of the city's teenagers earning a diploma, well below the national average of about 70 percent, a report to be released Tuesday concludes.

The study also found that 13 percent more teens graduate from high schools in the Austin suburbs than from city schools. That's below the 17-point graduation gap nationwide between schools in big cities and their suburban counterparts.

The report, "Cities in Crisis: A Special Analytic Report on High School Graduation," was to be released Tuesday by Editorial Projects in Education. The non-profit organization, based in Bethesda, Md., publishes Education Week, an influential journal of pre-collegiate education.

The group partnered on the research with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a non-profit group funded by the billionaire software creator and his wife; and America's Promise Alliance, a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C., devoted to children's issues.

The group looked at high school graduation rates in the nation's 50 largest cities. Overall, the findings show, students from these urban areas have about a 50-50 chance of earning a basic high school diploma.

"Graduating from high school in America's largest cities amounts, essentially, to a coin toss," the report states. Nationwide, just 52 percent of the students in urban school systems ever graduate from high school.

And while big-city schools account for about one-eighth of all high schoolers, they are responsible for a quarter of the 1.2 million students who fail each year to graduate from high school.

"It is not an isolated problem: This is a national crisis," said Marguerite Kondracke, president the America's Promise Alliance. "The inner-city kids deserve a chance in life just as much as the suburban kids do. ... We're a nation. We share in this. This is our future workforce. This is our future security."

Part of the problem, said Kondracke, is the quality of inner-city schools and teachers. It doesn't end there, though, she said.

"Too many kids come into the classroom without enough personal support in their life to stay the course," she said in an interview. "Too many don't have caring adults in their home, don't have health care, don't have a safe place where they go after school."

While analysts have traditionally believed that about 85 percent of teenagers graduate from high school nationwide, the actual number is closer to 70 percent, the report concludes.

"Graduation rates are even lower among certain student populations, particularly racial and ethnic minorities and males," the report states.

Nationwide, for example, the graduation rate is 49.3 percent for Native Americans; 53.4 percent for blacks and 57.8 percent for Hispanics. Among white students, the graduation rate is 76.2 percent. Asians are the most successful ethnic group, with 80.2 percent graduating from high school, the report found.

Geography, however, also plays a role.

Researchers have long documented striking differences between graduation rates among urban schools and their suburban counterparts. This study focused on the so-called graduation gap in the nation's 50 largest cities and ranked each city according to graduation rates.

Topping the list is Mesa, Ariz., where 77.1 percent of teenagers graduate from high school. At the bottom: Detroit, where just one high schooler in four earns a diploma.

Editorial Projects in Education calculates graduation rates using a formula that takes into account the percentage of students within a given school district who advance from ninth grade through graduation. The group derives national estimates by aggregating the district data.