D.C. Has Worst High School Graduation Rate at 59%

You’d think they’d have a better rate, considering they spend almost $30,000 per pupil each year. That money must be going for something beside classroom instruction. You think this will dampen the argument that we need to spend even more on education? Think again.

Washington, D.C., had the worst high school graduation rate in the country in 2011, according to state-by-state statisticsreleased Monday by the U.S. Department of Education.

Only 59 percent of high school students who started as freshmen in the 2006-2007 school year graduated four years later from District of Columbia schools, according to the data, which details state four-year high school graduation rates in the 2010-11 school year.

That compares with a 76 percent rate during 2009-2010.

There were 71,284 students in 191 schools in the District of Columbia, which is not a state but comprises the nation’s capital city. The district received $98.3 million dollars in federal funding during 2011.

Second from the bottom is Nevada, the home state of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), with a 62 percent graduation rate.

From CNS News