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MO High School Graduation Rates Released

New data on high school graduation rates have been released.
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New data on high school graduation rates have been released.

Preliminary figures were released Monday showing how many Missouri high school students graduated this year.

The numbers also use for the first time a federal guideline that only takes into account students who take four years to finish high school.  Michele Clark is with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.  She said the requirement will make it possible to compare Missouri’s performance with other states:

“Now the traditional way that Missouri has been calculating its graduation rates are based on a graduate cohort, which does include the students who take longer than four years to graduate…so there’s two rates, two ways of looking at the data, both are useful.”

The data released Monday shows that more than 84 percent of Caucasian students in Missouri graduated from high school this year, while just under 64 percent of African-American students did so – and just under 74 percent of Hispanic students.  Gender-wise, nearly 84 percent of female students graduated this year, compared to just over 76 percent of male students.  

Full results will be released December 1.

Missouri Public Radio State House Reporter Marshall Griffin is a proud alumnus of the University of Mississippi (a.k.a., Ole Miss), and has been in radio for over 20 years, starting out as a deejay. His big break in news came when the first President Bush ordered the invasion of Panama in 1989. Marshall was working the graveyard shift at a rock station, and began ripping news bulletins off the old AP teletype and reading updates between songs. From there on, his radio career turned toward news reporting and anchoring. In 1999, he became the capital bureau chief for Florida's Radio Networks, and in 2003 he became News Director at WFSU-FM/Florida Public Radio. During his time in Tallahassee he covered seven legislative sessions, Governor Jeb Bush's administration, four hurricanes, the Terri Schiavo saga, and the 2000 presidential recount. Before coming to Missouri, he enjoyed a brief stint in the Blue Ridge Mountains, reporting and anchoring for WWNC-AM in Asheville, North Carolina. Marshall lives in Jefferson City with his wife, Julie, their dogs, Max and Mason, and their cat, Honey.