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Charter School Graduation Rates Fall Short of Traditional Public Schools

School desks
STATEHOUSE NEWS BUREAU

A new study shows the graduation rates of Ohio’s traditional public schools are much better than those of charter schools.

The study shows even when excluding dropout-recovery schools, the four-year graduation rate of charter schools in Ohio is just under 45 percent, faring worse than public schools in Ohio’s six largest cities. Schools in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton, Akron and Toledo graduated 73 percent of their students.

Howard Fleeter of the Ohio Education Policy Institute, the group that conducted the study, says there are racial disparities, too.

“White non-hispanic students graduated at a 92.8 percent rate. Hispanic students graduated at an 80.4 percent rate. Black, non-hispanic students graduated at a 78.4 percent rate,” Fleeter said.

Fleeter says poor, rural districts performed better than their urban counterparts. 92 percent of students in those rural districts graduated on time.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.