Education Week released its annual report on graduation rates Friday and Montgomery, Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties rank high on a list of the 50 largest districts in the nation for 2009.
Montgomery has a graduation rate of 87 percent, the best in the nation for large systems. Baltimore County came in fourth and Anne Arundel was ranked sixth. Baltimore City came in 47th with a graduation rate of 50 percent. Howard County's school system is not large enough to be in the top 50.
Education Week calculates the graduation rate differently from the state, and so the numbers are not always consistent with what school system's report each year to Maryland school officials. For instance, Baltimore City reported a 62 percent graduation rate in 2009, far different than the 50 percent figure that Education Week used.
How graduates are counted each year should soon become more consistent with the use of a uniform identification number for each student which will allow students to be tracked even when they leave a school system or move out of state to another school.
