City celebrates historic high graduation rates, record low dropout rates
City officials announced on Friday, February 10 that New York City’s four-year high school graduation rate hit a historic high in 2016, while the dropout rate fell to the lowest ever.
According to Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, the graduation rate citywide rose to 72.6 percent, while the dropout rate fell to 8.5 percent.
“Our public schools are unquestionably the strongest they’ve ever been – we’re graduating more students than ever before,” said the mayor, noting also that the city is well on track to reach its goal of an 80 percent on-time graduation rate by the year 2026. “From [day one], we’ve believed in the promise of our public schools as the ladder to success for all New Yorkers, and we are raising the bar at every school in every zip code.”