The White House announced Monday the highest US high school graduation rate on record at 83.2% in the 2014-2015 school year, although significant disparities still exist between groups of students.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, every group — from race to low-income students to those with disabilities — had increases in graduation rates, although the numbers vary from group to group.
White Students in the 2014-2015 year, had a graduation rate of 87.6% — 13 percentage points higher than black students (74.6%), 9.8 percentage points higher than Hispanic students (77.8%) and 16 percentage points higher than American Indian/Alaska Native students (71.6%).
President Barack Obama will have a chance Monday to tout the increase in graduation rates over his time in office when he visits Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington.
While there the President will highlight investments made during this time in office, as well as resources available for students to continue their educations past high school, according to the White House.
The graduation rate is up about 1 percentage point from the 2013-2014 school year which saw graduation rates at 82.3%. The graduation rate has raised about 4 percentage points since the 2010-2011 school year, which was the first year all states used a consistent measure of high school completion, according to the White House.
Education Secretary John King on a conference call with reporters Monday said that credit for the graduation rates “goes to teachers and families and students in their school community” but also pointed to investments made by the administration in technology and early education as factors.