By ERICA HARBATKIN
STAFF WRITER
MyCentralJersey.com

New Jersey's high schools have the highest graduation rates in the country, according to a report released this week.

The 2008 Diplomas Count report used 2005 data to compare graduation statistics across the country. Its figures allow for a more accurate state-by-state comparison than state-reported data because all states use their own formulas to calculate graduation rates.

New Jersey's 83.3 percent graduation rate is significantly above the national average of 70.6 percent.

Still, of the 110,862 ninth-graders in the state in the 2004-05 school year, 103 students will drop out each day and 18,474 will not graduate this year, according to the report. The numbers are starker in New York, where high school students drop out at a rate of 466 per day and 83,905 of the state's 261,936 ninth-graders will not graduate.

The lowest graduation rate in New Jersey is in the 13th Congressional District, which includes Carteret, Perth Amboy and parts of Woodbridge and Linden. That district recorded a 69.8 percent graduation rate, which falls in line with the national average ...

The report also found a lingering gap between the graduation rate of New Jersey's white and Asian students and its black and Hispanic students. While 87.3 percent of the state's white students and 86.3 percent of its Asian students graduate, just 62.2 percent of black students and 64.4 percent of Hispanic students get their diplomas in four years. A similar imbalance exists throughout the country.

Hispanic females graduate at higher rates than their male peers — 67.4 percent of Hispanic females graduated in New Jersey in 2005 compared to 57 percent of Hispanic males. That inconsistency is also in line with the national average, where 62.7 percent of Hispanic females graduated compared to 52 percent of males.

READ MORE: http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080604/NEWS/806040398

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