By Stephanie Crosby
Frankfort, KY – The Kentucky Department of Education released what it calls the state's non-academic' data on schools Tuesday. Kentucky's graduation rate is slightly down, while dropout rates are slightly improved.
Spokesperson Lisa Gross says the graduation rate dropped from just over 84.5% to less than 84% from 2008 to 2009. The dropout rate fell by almost half-a-percent to 2.89%.
"The thing about any piece of data is that you can see both sides, and yes we see both sides of this. Yes, it's great that the dropout rate decreased, but on the other hand, our graduation rate for that particular class also decreased. That's not so good."
Gross says while dropout rates are declining, the numbers are troubling when broken down by race. She says a disproportionately high number of African-American students drop out of school. Last year, nearly 5% of African-American students dropped out, compared to 2.6% among Caucasians and 2.2% among Asian students.