High school graduation rate increases to 65.1 percent

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 | 4:10 p.m.

Clark County’s high school graduation rate was 65.1 percent in 2008, a gain of just over 2 percentage points, according to the latest data obtained Tuesday by the Sun.

The district’s graduation rate in 2007 was 63 percent, where it’s hovered for several years.

At a recent district presentation on efforts to improve the graduation rate and reduce the dropout rate, School Board member Larry Mason expressed frustration that little ground has been gain in recent years. Mason, a 14-year veteran of the School Board, said there are programs and initiatives that are making a difference for some students, but he wanted to see more improvement on a broader scale.

Indeed, the breakdown of the latest graduation rates show a wide range of results for individual comprehensive high schools, from 41.3 percent at Western to 89.5 percent at Coronado. The district’s magnet high schools, including Las Vegas Academy, Southeast Career and Technical Academy and Advanced Technology Academy all topped 90 percent.

And Nevada’s overall graduation rate can vary widely, depending on the formula used. Outside researchers have put the Silver State’s graduation rate as low as 45 percent in recent years, while the Nevada Education Department put it at 67.4 percent for the class of 2007.

In 2005 the nation’s governors agreed to adopt a uniform formula for calculating graduation rates. The class of 2011 – including in Clark County -- will be the first measured using the new standard.

The new formula could be a challenge for the nation’s fifth-largest school district, because it will be penalized for students who leave town without providing forwarding information indicating they are still in school.

In November 2007, the district went looking for the 3,791 high school students who had been enrolled the prior spring but did not return in the fall. The district was able to locate only 1,020.