High school seniors in Georgia graduate at a lower rate than their peers across the nation.
What’s the problem: The teachers, the principals, the students?
A new study suggests there could be something else to blame: uniformly high expectations.
The national group Achieve did a state-by-state comparison of curriculum and placed Georgia among the seven states — and the District of Columbia — that demand the most of all students. These states expect every student to take what Achieve calls "college and career-ready" level courses in English and math — the kind of coursework required to get into college, enter a job training or apprenticeship program or pursue a military career.
"To be prepared for any of these post-secondary opportunities, students need to take at least three years of mathematics (through the content generally found in an Algebra II or an integrated third year math course) and four years of rigorous, grade-level English," the study says.
Most states offer multiple tracks with varying degrees of rigor, and they don’t report the percentages of students who earn a diploma at each level.
But rigor doesn't explain all of Georgia's woes. The only neighboring state as rigorous as Georgia was Tennessee, and despite the equally high demands there, Tennessee beat the national average graduation rate by more than 4 percentage points in 2015, the most recent year of national rates reported by the U.S. Department of Education. The national average graduation rate was 83.2 percent that year, when Georgia's was 78.8 percent.
There was some consolation in the 2015 numbers. Georgia bested Florida by nearly 1 percentage point despite the lesser demands that state places on all its students.
But this state has work to do. Preliminary figures released by the Georgia Department of Education this week indicate the state graduation rate gained only 0.4 of a percentage point in 2016 — probably not enough to overtake the nation when the federal numbers are released.
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