Graduation rate drops at D.C. charter schools

The graduation rate for D.C. charter schools dropped nearly five percentage points, to 83.3 percent, for the 2008-09 school year, officials said Friday.

The rate is still higher than that of regular D.C. public schools, which announced last week that theirs had increased 2.6 percentage points, to 72.3 percent, in the 2008-09 school year.

Charter school officials said they were not worried, and they attributed the decrease to improved tracking.

"I think what we've got here is probably better data rather than some precipitous drop-off," said Thomas A. Nida, chairman of the D.C. Public Charter School Board.

The number of students being counted is relatively small. Officials said 851 seniors graduated last year from D.C. charter schools, which had about 6,750 students enrolled in grades 9-12. Not all the schools had a graduating class. Charter students make up about 38 percent of the D.C. public school population this school year.

D.C. public school officials and the charter board say the graduation numbers for both systems are likely to drop next year, when a more accurate method of calculating the rates will be instituted.

The current formula, also used by some states, divides the number of graduating seniors by that number plus all those who dropped out in the preceding four years. Researchers say that method isn't accurate. The new method will track individual students from the start of freshman year to graduation day. The federal government is requiring all states to use the new method by 2011.

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