Graduation Rates Rise in South, Study Finds

Reversing a downward trend, high school graduation rates in most Southern states have climbed this decade, with Tennessee leading the pack in growth, according to a report out today from the Southern Regional Education Board.

At the same time, more than one in four 9th graders in the region still are not graduating on time, and the recent gains only bring the South close to the same level it saw in the early 1990s, says the SREB, an Atlanta-based compact of 16 states.

“Perhaps for the first time, Southern states overall are within reach of the national average graduation rate,” writes David S. Spence, the president of the SREB, in an introduction to the report. “We also have more accurate measures of these rates, which can help states begin to solve the...