NATION 2000 graduation rate at 70%, report says

Pennsylvania ranked 13th among states for its 2000 high school graduation rate; Ohio ranked 16th.
NEW YORK -- Only seven in 10 public high school students from the class of 2000 graduated, with lower graduation rates among black, Hispanic and American Indian groups, according to an independent study released earlier this month.
The "Public School Graduation Rates in the United States" report was released by the nonprofit Manhattan Institute for Policy Research think tank.
The report's authors say the finding is at odds with statistics showing that less than 15 percent of students fail to complete high school.
The National Center for Education Statistics found a national high school completion rate of 86.5 percent for the class of 2000, according to the report.
The discrepancy between the NCES finding and the Manhattan Institute finding, the report says, is largely caused by NCES' counting recipients of General Educational Development certificates and other alternate credentials, and by a reliance on a methodology that is likely to undercount dropouts.
What was found
Among the report's findings:
* The graduation rate for Pennsylvania students was 78 percent, ranking it 13th among states; Ohio's rate was 76 percent, ranking it 16th.
* The national graduation rate for white students was 76 percent; for Asian students, it was 79 percent. Blacks had a graduation rate of 55 percent; Hispanics, 53 percent; and American Indians, 57 percent.
* Pennsylvania ranked 10th among states for graduations of white students, at 83 percent, and Asian students, at 82 percent. It ranked 16th for graduations of blacks, 59 percent, and Hispanics, 50 percent. A breakdown was not available for Ohio students. Information collected was insufficient to determine a rate among Pennsylvania's American Indian students.
* Among the black, Hispanic and Native American groups, each had graduation rates of lower than 50 percent in six states.
* The lowest overall graduation rate and the lowest rate among white students was in Florida; Wisconsin had the lowest rate for blacks, Mississippi for Hispanics, Nebraska for American Indians, and Rhode Island for Asians.
* The highest overall graduation rate was in New Jersey; West Virginia had the highest rate for blacks, Louisiana for Hispanics, Alabama for Native Americans, Illinois for Asians, and North Dakota for whites.