Students are slow to finish

SEATTLE – High school students in Washington state showed little improvement in graduation rates, with more than a third failing to finish in four years by 2003.

Statewide, about 24 percent of freshman in the class of 2003 dropped out of school over the next four years. Another 10 percent were still in school and had not earned a diploma on time, Pete Bylsma, an administrator with the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, told the state Academic Achievement and Accountability Commission on Monday.

More than 65 percent of high school students graduated on time.

The state’s Asian or Pacific Islander students had the best on-time graduation rate with 48.3 percent, while rates among blacks and American Indian students were 48.3 percent and 41.8 percent, respectively.

Those rates were improvements from 2002, Bylsma said.

In Seattle, the state’s largest school district, almost half of freshmen who were expected to graduate in 2003 failed to do so. The rate was slightly worse than Seattle’s class of 2002, according to the state superintendent’s office.

Seattle’s cumulative dropout rate was 28.5 percent, with 21.3 percent of the class continuing in high school beyond their scheduled graduation. The on-time graduation rate in Seattle was 50.2 percent for 2003, down from 53.2 percent in 2002.

The 2003 numbers are the latest available.