Published: June 13, 2007 12:05 am      

National study puts Miss. at bottom of graduation rates

A new study, based on data from the 2003-2004 school year, puts Mississippi near the bottom when it comes to numbers of students who graduate from high school.

Education Week on Tuesday released graduation rates for the 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as for individual school districts within each state for the 2003-2004 school year.

Mississippi’s graduation rate was 62 percent, which was higher than Alabama, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico and South Carolina.

The national graduation rate is 70 percent. Utah has the highest graduation rate at 84 percent, and South Carolina has the lowest with 54 percent.

‘‘This is not just a Mississippi issue,’’ Hank Bounds, state superintendent of education, said in a www.sunherald.com article.

‘‘This is a national issue. There are as many reasons for kids dropping out as there are kids dropping out. The bottom line is that we have too many kids dropping out of school,’’ Bounds said.

Meridian School Superintendent Sylvia Autry said Tuesday the city’s graduation rate is about 86 percent. She said the state has a new system was implemented this year for calculating the graduation and drop out rates of school districts across the state.

She said the state tracked a cohort group of students that began the ninth grade in the 2002-2003 school year. The graduation rate is based on how many of those students graduated in the 2005-2006 school year.

Autry said the district has a three-year goal to increase the graduation rate to 95 percent.

Lauderdale County School Superintendent David Little was out of town on Tuesday at an education conference. He estimated that the county’s graduation rate is about 84 percent.

The Education Week report shows a direct correlation between the amount of education students have and the salary they make.

The state’s median annual income is $31,595.

The 2006 Legislature authorized the creation of the Office of Dropout Prevention at the Mississippi Department of Education. Bounds has asked each school district to develop a dropout prevention team.

In addition, the Department of Education wants to redesign the high school curriculum to help students who go on to college and those who go straight to work.

‘‘The primary emphasis of the high school redesign plan is reducing the dropout rate,’’ Bounds said. ‘‘We’re trying to make school more relevant. We want to challenge students who need it and provide a safety net for students who are struggling.’’