By the Numbers: Santee Graduation Rates Decline Slightly

The gradutation rate of Santee high schools declined by 3.5 percent between the 2008 and 2009 school year, a larger annual drop than the majority of other high schools in the district, county and state, according to California Department of Education data released Tuesday.

The drop is due to 's 4.1 percent drop in graduates in 2009 and ' rate dropping 3 percent.

Santee's overall graduation rate is still 7.6 percent higher than the , 12.4 percent higher than the County average, and a full 13.1 percent higher than California's graduation rate, though the gap is closing.

Statewide, more students are and less are graduating, something State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell on Tuesday called "unacceptable."

The state has been shifting to a new system for calculating graduation and dropout rate that assigns numbers to individual students. The system, called CALPADS, is expected by officials to be more accurate than previous calculation methods which relied on aggregate numbers and estimates.

Source: California Department of Education. *Figures represent the percentage of enrolled 12th Grade students that graduated.

City News Service contributed to this report.