Farina: NYC High School Graduation Rates Slightly Up

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- New York City's schools chancellor said high school graduation rates are up slightly while dropout rates are down.

Carmen Farina said Monday just over 70 percent of the class of 2015 graduated, a 2 percent increase over 2014.

"That's not great, but it's better," Farina said at an unrelated event. "More importantly, there's been a major drop in the dropout rate."

She said the dropout rate in the nation's largest school district fell to nine percent.

Farina said it's all good news for educators, who can now begin to focus on college readiness courses, WCBS 880's Marla Diamond reported.

"Higher level thinking and AP for all and all the things that we said we're going to put in our high schools," she said.

Phil Weinberg, deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, said city schools have also been increasing efforts to help struggling students make it through high school.

"What we're seeing is schools are engaging students for longer, keeping them in school longer if they've struggled and making sure that more and more of our students make it to the bar of graduation," he told 1010 WINS.

End-of-the-year statistics show that the trends held true across demographic groups, though vast racial disparities in graduation rates still exist.

Education data show that 64 percent of Hispanic and 65.4 percent of black students graduated in 2015. That compares to 85 percent of Asian and 82 percent of white students.

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